Empty Afternoons

This miasma presses itself down onto me, into me,

hazy humidity collecting in tiny beads

on my face, on my back,

threatening to join forces,

create rivulets of torture

and let them flow freely

over my body, through my mind

during these empty afternoons

with no phone call to anticipate,

no voice in the silence, just broken

handfuls of fragmented memories

of the time we didn’t go to the movies,

the other times we didn’t have dinner,

the conversations we never had,

the angry accusations I never hurled at you,

the condescending judgment

you forgot to heap on me

in their presence, my absence,

beating me down like this godawful miasma,

a sweltering, lonely hell

where I live alone in puddles

of stolen memories.