Not politely

it’s only been a day and a half
since the airport swallowed you
like it swallows everything--
names, promises, the soft dumb plans
people make when they’re still warm.

and my body, that traitor,
won’t cooperate with the whole
“moving on” routine.

it keeps finding you
in little places--
a tender spot on my arm,
a bruise that feels like a receipt,
a private proof
i didn’t just dream you up
to survive the cold.

i touch them without thinking,
like a drunk checking for cigarettes,
and i grin.
because there you are--
not in my head,
in the flesh of my days.

the strange part is how clean it was,
how heady.
i wasn’t doing math.
wasn’t reading tea leaves
like some anxious saint.

i was just a creature,
plain, breathing,
letting you happen.

and now you’re gone
and the memories crawl up out of me
with embarrassing clarity--
as if my mind has a thumb
stuck on replay.

your hand on my sternum,
that steady pressure--
not a threat,
a kind of law:
you’re safe. you’re mine for a while.

your weight saying the same thing
without words--
not trapping me,
just proving there was no exit
from the way you loved.

and the sheets--
god, the sheets--
pulled up like a curtain
so i could stop being shy
and quit negotiating with myself
and just… disappear
into yes.

your kisses tasted like chai and coffee,
like mornings that don’t apologize
for wanting what they want.
i didn’t know a mouth could do that--
turn a person into weather.

and the part i keep laughing at,
because it was so you,
like you were built wrong in the best way:

those stinky sardines--
me chewing, unromantic,
salt and tin and stubborn humanity--
and you, abrupt as a bar fight,
deciding right then
to love me anyway,
like you had to make a point:
no smell, no mess,
no “too much”
could scare you off.
as if you wanted all of me,
exactly as i am,
even the ridiculous parts,
even the parts people pinch and judge
and pretend not to see.

i miss you.

not politely.
not like a postcard.
i miss your hands,
your mouth,
your certainty--
the way you made wanting feel
like something i didn’t have to earn.

and tonight the room is quiet
in that cheap, honest way
quiet gets
when the only witness left
is the body
still keeping score.