*Published in Vol. 5 of Fools Magazine
My coat is itchy.
Wool isn’t supposed to feel that way.
The finer kind, anyway.
The warmth from his grasp has disappeared,
separated by that old, yet familiar,
barrier of isolation.
A chilling shiver creeps through my veins,
causing my spine to shake and my neck to jerk.
The coat isn’t warm enough.
It was expensive enough, surely.
The cold seeps through regardless.
A moment ago, I could not breathe.
My heart clenched up slowly at first,
in the way it does while watching
the opening salvo of a horror movie.
Or rather,
the sudden twinge of
pain when thinking of
a melodrama that struck
me or worse,
the feeling when I watched
for the first time and tried not to cry
in front of a friend.
Tears prickle my eyes, my blood
immobilizes
and accelerates all at the same time.
I don’t breathe, trying not
to let him
know
how much
I’ve
been affected,
how laid
low I am in
that moment;
when the
movie becomes
my life.
The moment when I stop to wonder
haven’t I
seen this before?
I say goodbye.
I watch him try to interrupt me.
I see his pleading eyes beg me to understand
why he is leaving
why I’m helping him go.
I do.
I hate it.
I heard that it’s a man’s
exit from your life that hurts
the most, not his entrance.
After your walls are broken
there is nothing
left to be demolished.
My coat is purple.
The color of a welled-up bruise that has
been under the skin for a while but
has never quite lost its pangs.
There is some yellowing as well,
all mixed together or surrounded,
and disgusting.
The color of eggplant, which I’ve never had a
taste for.
Too, too bitter.
Yellow is complementary to purple.
A healing color?
But the coat fits well enough.
It scratches me as I lean toward his retreat.
My fingers are numb now, turning purple to match.
The coat barely warms them
The pockets are deep and have another pocket inside.
For change
or wadded bills, keys, a condom or piece of gum.
No change, only folded paper,
the expensive kind, thick
like parchment, which
unfolded becomes a photograph.
The scene, serene, was captured
unbeknownst to us.
As if it’s illustrated.
We’re happy.
I run my fingers across your face.
The texture doesn’t feel like you; it’s not warm.
No stubble. No pressure upon my hand or face
from your nuzzle.
Unlike you, the paper yields to me.
I rip it into halves,
quarters,
eighths,
sixteenths,
into uneven,
torn
bits of skin-
colored ink.
A shred with your eye catches mine
as bits of you flutter to the ground.
I tell myself, “told you so.”
I’d said it before
but I used to be easier to shut up.
My smile curls
with disapprovement.
You float away in the wind.
The wool scratches my numb, yellowed,
whitening hands
when I shove them back
into my pockets.
There, it’s warmer.
I may have a paper cut.
Philip Runia 