the wind in the trees outside my window
sounds like waves
and occasionally I get a scent that takes me back
before four unhappy new years wore me down
I am less agoraphobic now
but this smell is fall’s last breath as it
collapses into winter
and I collapsed then, too
I thought I’d seen the last of me
I tried to warn you in songs that were everything short of a scream
when nothing else seemed to make sense to you
sparse like the first weekend of a midwestern
december
(just as cold as you became)
(black ice dead eyes and all)
and failing that, I vanished
into the empty western sky
but once it looked like I could be happy
once it looked like I could have it all
you chased me through the autumns, the winters
and the years as if none of what you’d done
to me before mattered
over and over and over again
I never understood it
why was I so important
and ultimately
why do you pursue a vision of me
that was never real at all
-Allēna
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