On Softness

God, I am tired of writing about you.
Downbeat. Upbeat. A pretty metaphor about geese
and Indian Summer.

I am so sad but I am still shaving my legs.
No one is touching my shins but I still
rub coconut oil into my ankles after
I shower. I spray rosewater onto my cheeks until
I glow. I am so soft and I run my fingertips over my
stomach when I miss you, palms whisper soft like kissing
a stranger, a hundred peach fuzz hairs, duckling
new and I love every one (everyone).
I am soft as the sweet, wet bruise on an overripe plum.
Soft as grayblack winter slush. Soft as the flame
that licks your passing palm.

Once, I slept beside you so often that when I smelled
perfume on your pillow it was my own.

Once, I burned myself boiling water in your kitchen and you
cupped your hands around my fingers like you’d captured a moth,
your face like my hand was something fragile and winged.

Once, we were arguing and you said “God, we are married,”
but I don’t think you meant me to remember that.

When I think of you, I think of sunrise, the way we always
fought it to keep talking even when I was sleeping with
my phone in my hand.

When I think of you, I think of heavy blankets,
hot coffee, a valley of pillows.

I told you I am good at math but I do not know how to add up a year.
Still, next week I may miss you less.

For now, I do my laundry, kiss my cousin’s
baby girl on both cheeks, put on lipgloss just to
play piano in my robe.

I still write you into all my lists, try to stitch
you into the bindings of my books. Once, in a poem,
I called you a church but you are not an image
about the fragility of stone. Missing you is not a tornado.
We are neither the wolf nor the lamb in its teeth.
We are not epic, not myth, not legend. We are not simile.
There is nothing we are like or as.

Here is the truth:
Once, we were two people.
Once, we curled toward each other like a pair of parentheses
around something secret.

Here is the truth:
I am still softening my edges.
I am still wearing the same perfume.
I am still hoping that I smell like home
even when home is not with you.

Tomorrow I will miss you less.
God, I am tired of writing about you.

- J.S.