Quinn’s–After All This Time

By Jenni O’Rourke

Estranged, ignored, deranged
your blackened soul stays
busy with interpretations of Mary Shelley’s work.
What would she make of this mess we’ve made?
What am I to make of you
bumming Parliaments off of my new lover?

We’re different now:
stronger, smarter, busier, sadder.
More jaded, more lost.
There are no claims to be made.

A one thousand mile, three month
walk on a legendary trail kept you
from me, just days after I decided
I love you.

I want to be the angel hanging out
your window, naked cigarette
dangling in the fog.
Your earmarked pages,
your morning coffee.

He says you’re fat, and unhappy
“Not missing out,”
as he kisses my mouth.
I want your bad tattoos:
Your stomach’s skin stretched,
the bullet looks like a candy corn.

I fell in love with someone else,
while you slept on the cold ground.
He adored me in bar parking lots
while you broke your back carrying water.

I expected you to come back angry and
broken. Starved for my affection.
I wanted to sleep dirty in your quilt–endure
night sweats and snores.

You’re not angry.
You won’t let me see your new apartment.
It is yours and only that, much like your life
that refuses to include me.