The Last Letter (2006)

This is the last poem I will write you
because my words have run out....


I keep thinking about it
Your words
Half hearted
Lazy
Dreading
Falling
Slothfully into my open ears
Dripping down my neck
Trickling down my arm
Running down my leg
Dancing down my ankle
And landing at my feet

I’m
Dating
someone
else


I’m not as strong as you, you say.

My strength, my weakness
My twin, my foil
Perfect, but not loved
Pure, and unwanted

I think about all those poems I wrote you
writing
you me
in bold letters


Rejected for my resiliency, punished for wanting
My strength, a reminder of a slave’s past
A beautiful angel in cased glass.

And yet you say
You pray for me

Everyday
Everyday, you say.

Prayers that echo off walls
That I can no longer hear
Because they are bleeding

Prayers that cannot reach
A heart in motion
Long left its body behind

Prayers that cannot warm
A frozen mouth
Chilled by the breath
Of your indifference


Prayers that cannot
Remove the stain from my skin
Where the wound has cast
Its dye

One of these mornings
I’m gonna wake up
And the hole
Will be healed

But today,
I just stand still
And take it all in

Like slow jazz
Every I love you
Disconnected
Every moment
Improvisationally planned
Moving
Me

Away….

It hurts most that I never really knew you.

You see, I always was the real me,
The only me I knew how to be.

I think that somewhere
In between here and there
There was a little love

But it is less than I’m worth

And even angels must pay alms for their wings.

And falling words water new flowers

And loving makes us strong and not weak

And your words are not the only storm that this body has weathered, only a storm.

But still,
sometimes,
I think about it.

Down to the last letter,

I

t
h
i
n
k.