texts i don’t send from gate A37

i left my toothbrush in your bathroom, when
will you notice? i am finally ready to apologize
for the summer i spent sleepwalking through our list of last-times, for the
panic attack i had in party city thinking about
eating alone in a city where i can’t afford parmesan with no one i can ask
to knead their fingers against the muscles knotted to my spine. i didn’t know
how to tell you that nobody knows how i like my yolks but you,
wet and reddened with paprika, and
nobody else would keep the kitchen towel i burned
trying to stir the plum jam
that November when we tried to let things not go to waste, but
you still have it, singed black around the edges, like
day-old mascara coming off your cheeks when you are
washing an eyelash out of your eye. i didn’t know
how to tell you thank you but
i don’t want to reheat your frozen casserole in the microwave, the middle will always
be cold. what if you knew you would be the last person to touch me,
my fidgeting hands, and rub your thumb against the peeling turquoise
of my fingernails? no one else would know the shape of the scar
on my knuckles or the face my freckles make on the way
to my wrist. would the distance have seemed less long, could we have
draped it over us like a tape measure hung round a seamstress’s neck? or was it always
going to end this way, me carrying you into the Boeing 747 like food
spoiling in my stomach, your last kiss on my cheek swollen and itching
as if a bee sting.