Backwards Looking

you would think that leaves would grow
brighter by now, greener and translucent
under the light of our best memories
you would think, wouldn't you?

that some golden glow would wash over
the photos we took together in the beginning
you would think things would look
lovelier in the autumn tint of yesterday

instead I see strange shapes lurking
in the corners of retrospect, and I am afraid
that they were there all along and I was
merely a player in a game they set

now I have become a gnarled branch, an offshoot

of my former self and you are smiling across

the room from me. I mimic the expression

as empty and flat as an old mirror

and new lovers look like little cut-outs
of the shadows you cast, your tallness
and all the wants I wasted. so many other
poems need writing, but here I am again

I keep falling in love and hate every day
with everything we built together
you have always carried fire in your blood
and I cannot shake the heat of you

perhaps this is what you wanted, but
I am forgetting how I sustained these injuries
only the scars on my face now remain
from the first time you kissed me

and my heart breaks every time you do not
touch me, and I know it would split if you did
it could be easier, I think, if I did not see you
in every person I pass, but

I carry your smoke in my mouth
like the stale cigarette I use as a pacifier
and I breathe it over everyone who tries
to help me heal and leave my bed

I tiptoed around you for so long that I bruised
the balls of my feet. walking reminds me
of you now, the sensation that comes
with dreading each new step forward

which is a word I am lately unfamiliar with
the future has become some strange intangible
mist, and I am all twisted backwards looking
for what I must have missed in your face

there must have been maps in its creases and lines
but somehow I overlooked the legend in your corner
I never quite learned how to read you correctly
and I was doomed to wander aimlessly

so I am scratching like an old record
and I have put myself on repeat. I listen
to my heartbreak more often than the songs
you used to play for me in the sunlight

and you would think time would have washed
me clean by now, would have cast a glow
over all our insecurities. you would think
things would be different these days

but here I am
writing you down again
and the gray dawn doesn't do much
to change the light anymore