starfrosting | "In yout arms baby I don't feel no spring in winter..."

Tonight I got my stuff from yr room and left yr things neatly folded on yr bed. The military presence in yr room has increased sizably since I used to sleep there. Fun military training discs and eager american flag posters.

I thought I would be sad going into yr room and seeing the space that used to hold our sex and hands and coffee cups, but instead it just felt quiet. The room looked bright and clean, with the bookcase moved and the futon moved and the little string of white lights strung across the windowpane. The painting I made you- that garish gouache I did in 10 minutes as some sort of terrible ode to me liking you and me liking Chagall- was still stuck onto the wood panel near yr bed.

It was warm in there. You always kept the windows closed. When I left I put on my gloves.

I walked back, the usual route across darkened paths and the parking lot and that strange scattering of pine trees and the moon was a bright boat in the sky and stars pricked through the darkness. I could see my breath. And, strangely, I wasn't sad. I'm not sad. Does this mean yer right, that we can be friends? I want to be stone and shut you out, but I can also see us being acquaintances in the right time and spaces.

I don't want to give in, yr final victory casting me off and then reeling me back in at yr whim. I want to think of us as two little stars wheeling through the sky, collided and sparked and sent to spin again. I want to blame coincidence and weakness and attraction, and I want to cut those months out of my heart with a pocket knife and say, "look I'm mature and I know what's what--"

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"time
has eaten my innocence like a pistachio nut
love has walked off with my trust

oh noble firstlove
all goonygreen
what did you do with my laugh
what did you do with the money I gave you fridays
and holes in my shoes?"

Diane DiPrima, "Song at 24"

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