Mark Rothko, Green Over Blue, 1956
“To take a breath of water: does the thought panic or excite you?”
— Maggie Nelson, Bluets
My sister told me a soul mate is not the person
who makes you the happiest but the one who
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart
to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in.
It has always been you. You are the first
person I was afraid to sleep next to,
not because of the fear you would leave
in the night but because I didn’t want to wake up
ungracefully. In the morning, I crawled over
your lumbering chest to wash my face and pinch
my cheeks and lay myself out like a still-life
beside you. Your new girlfriend is pretty
like the cover of a cookbook. I have said her name
into the empty belly of my apartment. Forgive me.
When I feel myself falling out of love with you,
I turn the record of your laughter over, reposition
the needle. I dust the dirty living room of your affection.
I have imagined our children. Forgive me. I made up
the best parts of you. Forgive me. When you told me
to look for you on my wedding day, to pause
on the alter for the sound of your voice
before sinking myself into the pond of another
love, forgive me. I mistook it for a promise.
I’m here.
I’m not dead.
I got quiet and distracted and fell into another place. So sorry.
I never meant to neglect some of you, and I have missed you, and I might still be quiet for a bit more, but I’m coming back slowly.
My birthday is soon and things are changing maybe, and it’s a bit confusing, but kinda hopeful too.
And yes. Hi, I’ve missed you.
Jusepe de Ribera. Detail from The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria, 1648.
