New man, new smell

I slept with a new man
just yesterday.
No.
I fucked a new man
just yesterday.
I was barely able to sleep
next to him
as always
with most men.

It always catches me
by surprise
when I drift off
next to another
sleeping body.
It doesn't happen often
and you see
it is the preciousness
of those rare things
that turn them
into glorified
trap-holes.

I felt his smell linger
on my skin
no matter how thoroughly
I washed
after.
It made my nose wrinkle
in disdain.
I dislike
the men of convenience
taking more space
than they're
allowed.

Presents

I threw away your underwear
the other day.
It was a white pair of boxers
with blue motifs on it
and when I commented upon them
you just shrugged
and handed them over.

I took out the bag of your
birthday
presents
just yesterday.
A collection of mundane stuff,
stuff meant to make you laugh.
I bought them
in earlier, chillier days
before the clouds
of the quarantine
were clear and menacingly
approaching.

I took each
one
of them
out.
I held them
for a while.
Black thread and needles
for you said you had not one.
A chef's hat
and boxers
with weed leaves on them,
both black.
A warm black sweater.
I held each one
of them
for a while
and kept what could be used
and gave away the rest.

Your birthday card,
the inks of it long dry,
rests somewhere
securely
in a box.

I should have sent them
before the quarantine
was in place.

The mystery of June 19th

  In my agenda, back in the sunny days of January or perhaps early February I had made an entry for June 19th and it was your name. Just your name, nothing more, as if it were out of question that I would remember the meaning behind that. I am sure there was an important reason for me to do that, a reminder to be extra soft around this time but I can not, for the life of me, remember what it was and my bones are racked with guilt over the fact that I can't remember what this one day could have possibly meant to you. We did not even know whether anything would last this long and sure enough it all faded away with spring, the rains of early June washing away what remained. By now it does not feel like anything more than a passing dream.
  I came upon the entry by accident last night, the irony did not escape me, and ever since then I wonder what is the significance of June 19th in between washing the dishes and when I finally managed to find a place to sit on the bus. I wondered again later, while waiting at another stop and tried to work through any possible conversation that I still remember so as to figure it out until a 13 year-old interrupted my thoughts to ask whether she could bum one of the cigarettes I was rolling. I was perplexed over her age but she stayed close and I guiltily rolled one for her. Too young to be addicted to tobacco and I enabled her, what was I thinking?
  Another mystery of June 19th it appears. What was I thinking? In fact I was not, instead I reacted out of reflex, I took the route that would lead faster to some semblance of peace, of normality, of quiet.
  Naturally, you see, at the end of the day I did not ask you what June 19th meant at all.

No text to send

Just at the moment

when I think I don't miss you anymore

a sudden memory comes back
slipping slyly in my brain
and nostalgia

over

takes me.

I don't open our chat anymore
there's no message to debate over sending
it doesn't even cross my mind.
Sometimes during the lonely
long days of quarantine
I scrolled all the way back
to your voice message
that you sent
after leaving me at the airport.
Just to remind myself
what you sounded like
when you loved me.

Now I wonder
was it me you loved

or my loving you?

Sometimes I think
I won't miss you anymore
this time it felt easier
perhaps because your absence
was already mapped out
by experience.
All those years ago
you see
I was running in circles
banging my head
against invisible
invincible
walls.
I was running
in circles.
Until I resolved
to burn the maze
instead of tame it.

This time
there's a different flavour
in missing you

less desperate

more resigned.

No time

There was
no time, to be honest.
No time process
or grieve
or find a start
to picking up the pieces.
I slipped and fell
in every direction
and almost everyone around
was falling too.
And I could hold
no fellow man
no fellow soul
as they were drowning
for my hands grew hollow
and the spine and heart turned to lead
and as the world itself
is poisoning its children
I have no energy
to lie
or feel.