what the marriage would have been like

sunday mornings

i tried to keep you frozen in slow motion

so i could watch you squeeze 

fresh orange juice for hours, spend light-years

watching you crack and re-crack eggs

that sizzled with authority on the hot grill that never grew

cold. there always seemed to be one hair that

somehow managed to wander into your sleep-filled eyes,

an extra slice of toast that inevitably found its way to the 

floor. you’d make coffee strong enough to put hair on 

your mother’s chest, each cup washing away the drips

that persisted down the back of your throat after another pill

found its way into your brain. slowly, i would watch you

crawl back into bed, the narcotics taking their course,

helping you find a slow motion of your own that left

no room for me. 

for as long as it lasted, i’d watch you sleep, cover your

cold, lifeless limbs with the closest blanket in reach, and pray

you’d wake up before the sun went down. i no longer saw the man i loved 

in your eyes but i never stopped looking.

_________________________

these nights, i don’t sleep. i make tea to wash down the pills i can’t

pronounce and i allow cigarettes to burn you away in the morning while

the grill stays cold and untouched. i wonder if you’re alive,

if you ever found that ring, if Thailand taught you everything you hoped it would. 

i wonder if the man i once knew is somewhere inside of you. 

if he’s out there, if he ever shakes inside of you,
please say hello; tell him i miss him.
tell him i always leave my bed unmade in case he comes home. 
tell him i don’t apologize anymore for the way i feel and tell him
that somewhere inside of me, there is the sixteen year old he used to know; 
tell him she is not broken or scared. she is clean, she is sober, and she still has an insatiable
hunger in her soul. she is not alone, or sad. she is alive and she is waiting,
and she is thirsty for sunday morning to come.