Sunday, December 22, 2024

Jingle

 

© 2024 jennifer wagner

Dashing through the snow

in a one-horse open sleigh…

 

OK, so I am actually

dashing through the sun

in a 300 horsepower BMW,

 

but I am still wishing you

all the best and all the brightest

this Christmas

 

from right here in Arizona xo.

 

 


Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Still

 

For years

I looked at my pupils in the mirror

saying your name

to see if they still dilated.

For years.

 

And when they finally stopped,

I still had a hole inside me.

 

For years I tried to forget your name,

wouldn’t taste it on my tongue

or repeat it if spoken by another.

For years.

 

How I wished to unlove you,

feeling you walk around inside my heart,

seeing you walk around outside it

when you had found others to replace me,

while I just simply was not over you.

 

It wasn’t until I’d had his hands on me

for months

and until I got pregnant—that life

was the love that finally pushed

you out of the place I’d given you.

 

Years can go by now

and I don’t think of you,

but every now and then

I dream of you,

and every time,

you’re cold, unreachable, blank—

 

like the last time we spoke

after we both had moved on,

when we met

and I had coffee

and you had none,

looking at me in icy blue.

 

Why did you even invite me?

Perhaps I will never know.

 

And so, I hope this poem

speaks the words

I’ve never been able to say.

 

I hope it is closure

of a good kind

for me,

even if you never read it.

 

This poem is meant to say,

I loved you.

I remember you loved me.

We had so many good shared experiences,

too, despite the crumbling.

 

I’m proud of what I know of you,

what I’ve heard about your life,

which isn’t all that much.

But I want your every success,

am truly happy for your happiness,

as you’ve had it.

I am rooting for you in everything.

 

That’s love, you know.

 

And maybe that’s what that last

meet-up was meant to show me.

My hands cupped a dove, warm,

with an olive branch extending toward you,

while yours held a wintry glare to blind

the unsuspecting just trying

to move forward on a slippery road.

 

So, here’s to my forgetfulness,

because, 

though I don’t think of you often,

when I do,

when I take the time

to remember,

 

despite the years,

it hurts,

still.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

A sort of epistolary poem for Dora’s “Despite and Still” challenge at dVerse, which I am way too late for linking to, and for “Forgetfulness” at What’s Going On?