Just Where You Left Me
A poem by Julia R. DeStefano
Just Where You Left Me
“Aren’t you cold?” you asked.
Your eyes saying more than your lips.
Aching to learn the overflowing secrets
of my Sophia Loren dress
as it pleaded: “Be good to me.
Make me feel like the queen of all things.”
My words fall short.
I must want it too much.
Like I care too much.
Desirous for someone to protect me as I them.
To not be the only one going
the extra moonlit mile.
I wasn’t cold, not until you left.
Pulling on my robe.
Cinching it ‘round my tiny waist
to enclose me in comfort.
To protect me from these icicles that form
when my heart had just completed a thaw.
But the fleece is a poor substitute for you.
For your deft hands that are going to waste.
Your mouth needs a home.
A precious mind wanting peace, like mine.
Our hearts have always beat to the tune of their own drum -
haven’t they?
“It should be easier,” I think -
dizzily watching our moments of fleeting ecstasy
from my perch on the haunted fence.
A bystander engrossed in my own soap opera
when there’s a game on that I crave a partner to watch with.
Oh, you who knows the ways of me -
who sees through my nervous laughter
and furrowed brow when I start to overthink -
there’s a definition for us in the Dictionary,
and hurried interludes and stolen moments
ain’t it.
© Julia R. DeStefano
