Since She Left

Fair

If you picked up the telephone right now to call her (assuming that she’d answer) she’d tell you that I didn’t really give her a fair shake, because I didn’t really give her a fair shake after all was said and done. I was contemptuous of the relationships that she keeps with other men, ones that are not me, the ones that she has back home. And, since I choose to leave home all those months ago, she continued to have those relationships, even though she knew my intentions, my feelings about our collective future and my commitment to her. Well, as much commitment as I could have, being 3,000 miles away. She had always, for the most part, did a swell job of reassuring me that I was the one for her. Only I could satisfy her in the ways that she needed to be satisfied. I was the one she was holding on for. But it didn’t matter because here I am in this little room and she’s lord knows where, with someone else.

Lately I’ve convinced myself that there is nothing that I could say to move her, to sway her toward me after all this time. After the distance that I let work its way between us. The fantasy that we held of one another, the images of each other that we projected onto each other are no longer visible. The distance is too great, the stakes are too high, our expectations do not match our realities. She knows this. I know this.

If you picked up the telephone right now to call her (assuming that she’d answer) I’d hope that you’d ask her how she is, and that she would tell you that she’s fine. Though I’d want her voice to carry a cadence of longing, a hint that she is in someway broken over me, as I am over her.