Why Do We Only Call Each Other At Night?
By Ari Eastman
I keep rearranging our pieces.
I have never been good at puzzles.
My brain does not work that way.
I am not logical.
I am not concrete.
Please give me bleeding hearts and damaged bits.
I will show you how beautiful the mess can be.
Let me place bandaids where it hurts.
Remember when we kissed
on that golf course,
with our teenage
bodies shaking from the temperature
and the desire
of things we hadn’t done.
Remember our love is not a Rubik’s cube.
It is not yearbooks.
Remember our evolution and
how we are always changing.
Everything inside still burns when you talk to me.
You tell me it is too late to call,
but it is somehow okay when you do it.
So long as she doesn’t know.
I tell you it’s not fair.
To any of the parties involved.
I will not be the other woman, so you cannot do this.
I throw it across the room.
You know the truth is I hate talking on the phone but want to kiss your voice
and give it a home inside my ribcage.
And we were supposed to be the couple who got married.
It isn’t fair,
I scream.
I think you do too.
It is raining in Los Angeles
.
It is raining where I am standing
with open hands
asking you to just meet me.
Everything is so close
and I know when you fall asleep
my face still finds you.
And yours finds me.
I am sorry.
What if we had never been 3,000 miles apart?
Would you still be sleeping next to me?
I think,
I said,
I think I still love you
after all this time
and men,
I think it’s still you.
Tell me it’s the same.
Call me at noon
and not 11:30 pm.
Please.