You Don’t Come Around Anymore

Musical Selection: M.I.A. featuring Timbaland|Come Around

It’s another summer spent 
without you waking up to
Nag Champa scenting my home
and I am growing used to 
this empty space.

Someone said, “Just breathe 
and be” and here I am breathing
and being without you and 
it’s still hard and living ain’t
making it any easier, but
I am trying.

Isn’t that what you wanted 
me to do — try?

A piece of mail from a junker
I am tired of seeing came with
your name in the recipient’s space
and I thought, “How odd? We
never really lived together. Why is
this coming here?”

Could you be tracking me?
What’s left in your arsenal of tricks?
I suppose you knowing where I live
and how often I check my mail
is an advantage or is it a disadvantage?
The mind wonders . . .

I will be relocating soon and
the memories of you left within
these walls will have to stay.
I can’t take them with me,
not this time.

I have a lotus tattoo on my 
left wrist reminding me 
that I am always at my 
best when I come out of the muck
and when I was with you — 
that’s all I did, come out 
of the muck . . . over and over again.

I am done with being dirty.
I want to be clean, for now.

So you don’t come around anymore
and my mom says “Perhaps this is 
best, baby. We ain’t made to
be living in the past.” She’s right.
I know she is.

But there’s a small part of
me still trying to climb up
out of the same muck and
reach out to you to get
down and dirty once again
with me.
And I have to stop this.

I want to stop this.
I can’t.

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Originally published in Intimately Intricate on Medium.