By: Sondra Lowe
I don’t want to remember that your little boys are named Liam and Mason.
…Or why Liam has the scar on his cheek, or when Mason plays soccer, or what their smiles look like…
Like yours.
I don’t want to remember your favorite songs.
…Or singing them in my car.
I don’t want to remember the sound of your voice, unique and yours and reverberating around my head.
I have woken up each day with a migraine that sounds like music and laughter and it won’t go away.
I don’t want to remember the curves of your smile or the way your nose wrinkles when your laugh bellows into my soul.
You filled me up just to empty me out.
I don’t want to remember the depth of your eyes when you talk about the stars and planets and galaxies and seeing the Earth from the outside.
I don’t want to feel you anymore.
Your hands touched me in ways hands cannot touch me.
You kissed me with lips that are ghosts, lingering on every breath I draw into my chest.
My chest, empty and rattling again.
I am tectonic plates, reduced once more at my fault lines.
I don’t want to remember the way you said my name.
I don’t want to remember the way you made my heart find a new rhythm when it skipped beats.
…Or where you went to school to learn how to make music, or your birthday, or your favorite ice cream.
I don’t want to remember your middle name or the way your hand shakes when you’re nervous or where each of your scars are.
I want you to come back and leave again and I want you to take all of your things with you this time.
The breeze across the lake, the crickets with their violin legs, the music our nights made, the moon conducting it all.
Leave me with my heart and take yourself out of it because I am not yours to keep.
Please, God, take it away.
Please, God, you took him away and left all his pieces with me.
Please, God, let it end.
I don’t want to remember him,
Gods don’t hear,
And you don’t answer my calls.
