By: Magdalena Mihaylova
The bleeding out of the sky like the death of a relationship (photo taken by the author).
It is too cold to sit here and talk to you,
but I do it anyway,
my hands blue under
shaking knees,
but I don’t think you’ve noticed.
There’s nothing quite like a Michigan winter:
an emptiness in flat, lifeless cornfields,
despair in barren branches
cutting sharp into the pale sky,
the sunset bleeding out dramatically onto this
tragedy of a conversation,
of a relationship.
Yes, I remember it all still.
How could I forget?
The sacrifices a woman makes in her life
are never rewarded,
that is the greatest myth,
compromise,
the “he’s not always like this” and the
“well at least he…”,
and, of course, the “but he loves me”.
The lunatic knows how to keep a secret now,
a dismissive wave of her hand to hide the trembling,
a trip to the bathroom to sit on the toilet lid for a moment.
Breathe.
They talk about her while she’s gone:
who is she trying to convince?
There need not be convincing.
This is the fate we were shackled into
and will continue shackling ourselves into—
here, sister, hold this chain
while I lock you in with me.
But this is just a flicker of thought
while you shift in your seat next to me,
your breath visible in the pointed coldness
of the parked car. The McDonald’s “open” sign flickers,
illuminating a solemn face.
You are thinking of other things,
but that is a poem I cannot write,
could never write.
Nobody talks about the mystery of the man’s mind.
What if I had told you that I wanted to go home?
What if I had scrolled through Twitter while you drove me there,
instead of holding your hand, thinking of what I could say to fix this.
Now I write poems about you with sand between my toes,
an ocean between us. I feel nothing for you now but
bitterness for the woman you made me into.
The sun on my back, a tinge of red
already hot to the touch around my shoulder strap.
The continuous vibrations of my phone from WhatsApp,
mistakes laying in wait to be made again.
The blame I place on you liberates me,
the shame I feel for myself continues to rot.
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