the folded down corner

I am not sleeping, so something must be wrong. (I am nothing if not a champion sleeper. Planes, cars, libraries, couches, the ground. I love sleeping and am very protective of at least 8 hours every night.)

It is maybe, about a boy. (You can call him a man, a voice says. Calling him a boy does nothing to diminish the man-sized hurt that you are feeling.) I have maybe cried over this boy. But maybe not. His name is not the one that falls out of my mouth when I least expect it. This other name, I exhale it when I am by myself. Is my body shedding itself of him? Or is it trying to remind me of him. and Why is this name, and not that one.

There is power, maybe. That this boy does not occupy my silences. That I do not feel the need to address him directly. There is only one you, and he is not that.

You. You have left a bookmark in my heart. You are the folded page of a library book. When I come across you I smooth you out and wonder how you came to be and then I turn the page and you are gone.

But your name slips out of my mouth, still. A phenomenon that I have never experienced and I have loved and lost and loved again. (To break the reverie, it happens in the car, when I am driving. It happens at my desk while I am working. It happens while I am doing the dishes. Sometimes there are people around and I look up after it happens, and I wait for someone to ask, what did you say? and I will have to answer, nothing. In these moments my breath has a life of its own and forms itself as your name in my exhalations.) I have been heartbroken and I have broken hearts and this is the only time a name has appeared again and again and again.

It must be that:

You are trapped in my chest and are trying to get out.

Or, you have made a home in my body and I am trying to be rid of you.

Or, you are gone, and I want to remember you.

Or, I am alone and I am thankful, it is still only you. You are the only one to have left me, no one else.

(Or, am I telling myself this, to diminish the pain.)

But even in your absence, you leave me with words, and thank you, thank you, for that.