Written on September 30th, 2013
After my thirteenth birthday party,
after she had
brushed my hair
and we had
told each other secrets and
eaten chocolate cake at midnight,
my best friend Amanda
said “goodbye” and “see you later” and
left me a card that said
“Friends forever.”
That was the last time
I saw her.
And you wonder why I am crying
driving you to the train station
In the heat of Indian Summer
And I wonder
who I am saying goodbye to
as the train picks up its
shiny fetters
and churns off
into the distance.
Spinning down tracks
in a single spool.
I have to wonder who
is waving back at me
from behind the darkened
train windows
as I stand,
feet planted, on the platform
but propelled backwards
by some inertia
that makes things
on solid ground
feel as though they’re spinning.
(We’re all
spinning, I remember,
as I turn and leave the station.
moving
apart and towards
one another
the liquid of our molecules
expanding and contracting.
The minute
I said goodbye to you,
I felt
the sorrow
lifted
from my shoulders, as though
THAT had been the burden,
the intangible contraction.
Days before, I inhabited
a brief, determined
blissfulness
that comes of
treasuring every moment
we had left
together.
But your release–
as the
source
of my happiness
sped away from me
on tracks pointed
into the distance
and upwards as they
do in a painting–
was freeing.
I felt as though
I were the one
travelling
(the strange freedom
of close quarters
and the rhythmic TUG
of train cars)
and you seated, me
cemented
to the platform and
stationary, you
moving away from me
became an
other way of moving
together.
So that I
could begin my journey.
So that you, loving,
and leaving,
could release me.
Since last October, I have been in a deeply involved romantic relationship with a man significantly older than me. While he is steadfast, loving, and respectful, I have struggled with the containment that seems to automatically result from a committed relationship, or at least the patterns that I find myself revealing in the context of inhabiting one. On the last day of the month of September of this year, he left for California. Although I felt sadness at his going, and anticipated much mourning after his departure, I was surprised by the sense of lightness and freedom that filled me and led to this poem, which I wrote almost immediately after dropping him off at the station. We have agreed to part ways for this short period (until his return six months from now), mostly with the intention that we can experience our own adventures and so that I, in my final year of college, can get a taste of the independence that is impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to cultivate in the context of any committed relationship with a loved one, be they family or significant others. That sense of release is at once frightening and exhilarating, but not nearly as frightening as the thought of suffocation. I write this knowing that he will read it, knowing that the best prescription for love is utter honesty, and wishing him all the same freedom in his own journey.
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