Memories

You will inevitably spot him as you enter a hole in the wall open mic on a random Monday during one of Florida’s sorry excuses for winter.

He will stand out right off.

The tilt of the kangol colored burgundy brick red like the projects you left back home years ago.

The frame of his glasses peeking out from under it as he lowers his gaze to listen to prose being flung around the room by poets you came to see.

When he reads you will not move.

You will not think to snap or even clap.

You will become a fixture in the audience quietly wondering if he is real.

Afterwards you will compliment him on his hat more heavily than his poetry.

This will become a habit.

He will smoothly usher you outside which you will later learn is a deliberate attempt to separate you from the group of guys you came in with.

The wit of your initial conversation will be what prompts him to ask where and when he can see you again.

His car will pull up just in time to give him a reason to steal his arm around you with one palm rested in the small of your back as you slip your number into the other.

He will hold you here long enough for characteristics to register with a firm grip which hints to a history of havng things taken away.

His cheek will brush yours in its necessary goodbye.

He will smell like soft haiku’s.

He won’t look back when he leaves but you will, for a little longer than can be considered casual.

This will also become a habit.

In the months that follow he will remind you what you miss about home and all the things you crave in men with big vocabularies and even bigger hearts.

The first time he kisses you it will feel as natural as breathing.

He will taste like air tastes to lungs with a propensity for gluttony.

He will feel worth his weight in complication.

Privacy will become currency between you, good for quality time.

The quiet of your house will be flooded with sigh-full thoughts of him in his absence.

On a day which will seem to soon he will board a plane for home and you will cry the whole way to work that morning.

After some time the atmosphere of his letters won’t taste the same which will serve as your first clue.

When they become thin and watered down and your suspicions are confirmed you will convince yourself as always to take the high road and wish them both well.

You will resist answering the phone every time he calls choosing instead to lie saying it will be better to start the weaning now.

When the news of his passing comes friends will try to comfort you by pointing out that you still have memories of your time together, not realizing that this is the most painful part of the problem.

The next day you will pray for God to make you numb.

When this does not work you will write poems to him as candid and unashamed as the letters you were too timid to send before.

You will only share these with the mirror or the empty side of the bed.

They will play over and over in your mind before you sleep almost as if to conjure the soft scent of haiku or a lingering against your cheek rejecting the necesity of goodbye.