I keep asking myself questions like
When?
When to everything, every promise we never made.
When will your name light up my phone, email, the corners of
my lips in anything but a whisper?
Or maybe better, when will your name cease to light up my
senses?
The thing is, I never asked you for much.
Not out loud, at least.
I wanted little more than romance at first,
something to smile
about as sleep reached for me,
something to sigh across pillowcases to my
friends.
When you said that word, friend, I wanted less,
downsized hopes and dreams.
Placed fantasies in neat boxes, alphabetized.
I wanted one thing, basically.
For you to keep being that
simple thing. A friend.
Which you did not.
That’s when questions like
When?
Get easily replaced by
Why?
And though the answers to
When?
are usually seen as linear,
Why?
is a universe of uncertainty and I can’t quite find the right solar system
without you.
Without you?
A last question that isn’t really a question.
What were we really but fleeting pen pals,
two people who
emailed for a month?
You're a memory with no answers.
But, hey, I like question marks.
