he loved me completely
he had the sweetest, big dumb bear grin
honey dripping even
when he looked at me
he smiled the length of the eastern seaboard
crooked loving sunshine in smiles over 5 o’clock stubble
whilst buying me tiny lobsters made of chocolate
took 1,001 pictures of me drinking coffee, eating lemon Italian ice
marveling at hermit crabs wearing ornately bejeweled shells
navigating social media oceans and long distance romances
from Neptune City to New York Harbor
we nearly sank together
we never truly said goodbye
we never stopped wanting
we never stopped feeling
but he never trusted himself
he never trusted me
though he had many names for me
baby gurl
angel kitten
alicia honey
sweetie poof,
and sometimes simply,
mine
he lied
and then abandoned me to coddle
his comfortable failures.
He once told me the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.
How’s that working out, jack?
I knew he would never have the courage
to call me the one thing he should have called me:
his wife.
