You, I, and She

You, I, and she wait

in the car for our

story to change.

It’s rainy, always rain.

The chill bites

to the bones like

starving hounds,

and we wonder how

long we’ve been sad.

You mention

that our melancholy

is merely a reflection

of all we haven’t

experienced

or been.

When I try to write

it down, you remind

me that we cannot

be held by poetry

because our existence

evades everything

about the self.

She’s convinced

that displacement is

easier than facing

remorse alone, and I agree,

especially in the winter

when nothing feels right

and wrong has carved

into my skin like

the sharp snap

of abandonment.

We asked for this,

you remind me,

but she dreams

of going back where

comfort feels ghostly

and stolen

because at least

it remains within

the quiet abode

where our rawboned

roots grow.

You claim to know

everything about after.

She can’t be dissected

from the past, and

I am only this moment

when rain soaks through

the windshield

and heals

our vacancies,

dripping

from eyelashes

like tears of solace

because we have finally

been uprooted

from the terracotta

where empty promises

wilted into settling for less

than the blossoms

of all the love

we had carelessly given.

In memories

that never seemed mine,

she clings to bittersweet

fables about a girl

who didn’t know

how to build her own

castle but made the best

of grief she inherited

from a heartbroken queen.

I ache within

the tragic loneliness

of self-preservation.

And you harbor hopes

for tomorrow

that border impossible.

Upon which splintering

skull does this heavy

crown rest?

Entangled, we fight

against our own hearts

and minds.

Hours have never been

so convoluted

yet true.

And although poetry

cannot hold us completely,

we must try.

You, I, and She emerge

from the liminal shelter

letting this storm

memorialize our story,

and the rain, always rain,

reunites missing

bits and pieces

until we can finally confess

to the weeping sky

that the burdensome crown

rests above a lonesome,

unwavering brow.

We become the rain,

droplets reintegrating

into the very body

whence they were born,

a final dance of the downpour.

We have always been.

***

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