The clock unwinds in its factory state
and I stare at my phone once more —
the dimming screen
setting fire to my charred heart.

How I say I have learned
yet when the words uncouple
I find that I am but all the same.

There was a younger time
when I waxed poetic for a man and his guitar,
those bedroom eyes
and a laugh I loved like no other.

He’s gone now —
disappeared north in the wake of my return,
a ghost of permanence
to haunt me for the ages.

These days
when my teeth hit the ground,
I think of him
and
all the romance that we used to be.

I only hope my absence has stripped his life
of all those little complications.