B-Side Poem Story: a Response to PJ
by Amelia M. Garcia
Hello to the could-have-beens,
the never-weres,
the last-calls-ignored
and the times wasted.
I’m not exactly sure what to say to the person
who slept with their back to me
that last night at home,
the last time I hoped to remember.
During those hours
I was writing poems on your spine
and pushing them through the spaces in your ribcage.
When you coughed in the morning,
I wanted you to remember the way I felt when I got under your skin.
I’m sorry.
That’s the only way I knew how to get close to you.
But you left that day and told me
there was nothing left to hold out for.
I know we burnt out too fast.
I know I spent too much time in the wreckage
to see the possibilities for rebuilding,
know I became too used to destruction
to remember the beauty in a plan well-executed.
We could have been so much more than this.
But since you moved on I’ve been spending time
cleaning up my spare parts
I’m a bit rusty.
I’ve got poems in places where I used to keep you
rolled up tight as bone marrow.
You used to keep me together.
But when you said goodbye
I wrote you.
Down and out
you left me.
And I wrote.
I’m sorry that my heavy heart
sometimes swings battle axe,
but when you’re shaken to the core
you can’t shape the direction of the aftershock.
You were the first poem I ever wrote.
It’s going to take a few more
before I can let this go.
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