Let us say goodbye then,
You and I.
Let’s walk away, and begin to forget.
The kisses, of course,
And the remembering -of firsts and quirks, a handful of dates.
Let us put behind us our secret knowledge,
And all those times you dropped a kiss on the tip of my
nose.
The first time I ever wrote a love letter, I titled it ‘This is not a love letter’
And put it in caps, to emphasize how much it was not a love letter.
Let us obliterate the memory of that;
Leave it to the impersonal web of pixels and circuitry,
And the people who will stumble upon it one slow afternoon at work.
Let us erase the last traces of
That feeling in my chest when you laugh,
And how you call me ‘bitch’ with great affection.
Let’s rub away at the kisses
Till their last vestiges are wiped off the corners of our lips.
Let us kiss strangers till their tongues take away the electric of
Your tongue on my lips
And my lips on your fingers,
And your fingers playing a riff
In the dark.
Let’s forget the time you kissed my damp eyelashes (surprising yourself),
And pulled out the sting.
The world will not cease to turn,
And nothing will have been lost.
Except- a few brief hours
Where my hand on your chest was yours.
Nothing except laughing hysterically as we plotted murder,
and talked over each other, trying to win.
Nothing but staring at pixelated smudges on screens
Till our heads ached.
Nothing except the wind on our backs as we ambled home,
A happy tangle of limbs.
So you see it would be easy.
Let’s not make a fuss now.
Let’s not ascribe this affair undue importance
So the stars did not align for us
(They don’t align for anyone, you fool.)
The gods did not send any angels our way
(We never prayed for them, you see.)
Everything fades after a while,
Even memories, even pain, even something that came very close to being
Love.
