You were the axis until I left.
The chalk cracks my hands and
the milk souring doesn’t matter anymore.
On my drive to work, I turn the radio up
so I can’t hear the car’s noises. If I don’t know
what’s wrong, I don’t have to fix it.
Here in New England, we like fluffernutter sandwiches.
We drink Absolut from water bottles
in the club’s filthy bathroom.
You throw lampshades across the dining room,
And I tell you every morning over coffee
that I am rotting here in the cold.
But no one taught us how to plow through this.
I never learned how to swim, and you
never let me forget how well you float,
in and out, right next to me on the sofa.
Leaving is not an art, my father told me.
It’s not how you do it. It’s why.
When we are home,
we don’t look at the stars the same way.
We toss our softness into the trash.
We forget about each other’s flesh.
You are rarely here with me and
I am sleeping through the night regardless.
So I chose a whimper over a bang,
and Eliot, I’m sure, was disappointed
when I just stopped coming back.
Home is elastic and transferable, and
I am learning to whisper myself away from here,
each mantra pushing me further out of reach:
This is my body and not yours.
This is my body and not yours.
Chelsie holds a B.A. in English literature from the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. She lives in the Manchester area with her fiancé Riésa and their shar pei puppy, Rosie.
