to love makes one solitary
i.
It’s three thirty in the morning and he isn’t
listening to you, he isn’t -
saying anything, closed eyes and still hands.
When he does, finally, the words
fall like loose change between the floorboards
(this can’t have happened)
but you’re not lying, even though you wish you were.
ii.
Under his shirt there are bruises blooming,
like love, like wildflowers over his skin,
and it’s three thirty, shadows bleed from the cracks
he put, yesterday, in the walls
(he doesn’t want to talk about it)
and water spilt like regrets over the floor.
iii.
He clings onto you like a man drowning,
like he’s forgotten how to do anything else.
And the clock’s ticking,
and it’s three thirty in the morning, you’re awake,
but he’s sleeping and maybe that’s enough.
(you lie to him; say it’s okay, but he shivers,
trembles as your hand brushes through his hair)
iv.
And it’s been days and he still hasn’t said a word,
and at three thirty he’s wandering between the shelves,
paper thin and translucent under the kitchen
lights. The faucet turns and he watches the water run,
says he remembers days spent at the shore, the kiss of a
wave, the smile of the foam.
Then it’s just silence, and water dripping through the spaces
of his hands. (You said it’d get better,
he accuses, and you say—nothing. Some lies only work once.)
v.
You watch him from the window,
three thirty when all is quiet but for the clock, which ticks and
tocks the passing minutes, the unravelling seconds.
Three thirty and it’s raining outside, flashes of lights
and dripping water.
(he takes your hand, and
through a veil of night his eyes glitter like stars; he says,
let’s go home).
vi.
(This is what love has made him.)
____________
The Kübler-Ross Model is also known as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
