K,

I saw your ex, the most recent,
the one you loved, yesterday

walking down the street. He was
with another man, hair shiny

and black like yours. Your old love,
he looked thinner, almost hungry.

I wanted to take a picture. Text it to you.
Tell you that I miss when you lived

in this city. Tell you that D and I
switched sides of the bed last night.

It was my idea.  I woke confused
and lost and was tired at work all day

yesterday. When I saw your ex
from my car at the corner of Portland

and Broadway, I thought of the Halloween
party at G’s fourth-floor apartment

overlooking the cemetery. You were
dressed as Salvador Dali and I wore

a flapper’s dress and strands of faux-pearls.
We were obsessed with Russian poets and men

that didn’t know us and mostly each other.
You told me that falling in love

with someone new was just falling
in love with yourself over and over again.

We knew then that nothing hurts
as bad as nothing feels.

 

By Eloisa Amezcua