Do you know how often I still think of you? How many hours I’ve lost scrolling through the shrine of your Instagram; how I am an addict for the rewind of your stories. Do you know that when it’s late and I’m sad again I open your Facebook page, a reflex more natural than reaching for a book or pen. That leads me to her page — the woman you now love. I am terrified I’ll accidentally request to be her friend, but what’s scarier is that she will have no idea who I am if I do. Do you know that sometimes I still dream about you? In the dream we are in a swimming pool, she is behind us; a wedding dress photo on a cover page; your new happiness the headline. When I wake alone I wonder if you ever see me too in that moonlit storm. Do you still listen to poetry? Does she make your taste buds tingle the way I used to? Forget I asked. I want to know if your thumb is still green? Did you abandon our bonsai tree the way you abandoned… never mind. Do you ever reminisce on our campfires? All those hours we cocooned in the tent, so lost in each other. I think of that week often, how hunger disappeared when we were so full up on love. Do you still see your family? Do they ever ask after me? Without you my days are filled with emptiness and euthanizing animals. I am called doctor now, did you know that? Do you know that when I’m sad I still manage to make you the root? I never blame my circumstance or the age of the moon, can somehow circle it all back to you and that phone call, the word friend. I still wonder at what moment you threw away my toothbrush, when you truly let me go. Do you know how long that one tiny action took me?
Melissa Sussens is a veterinarian/poet living in South Africa. Her first poem was published at age fourteen in Teen Zone Magazine, for which she won a Chris Brown CD. She’s trying to get back into it.