Catalyst

When you left, I thought I felt nothing.
What I had done was wad up feeling
into a little ball the size of the tip of my
small finger and thrown it away.
It landed somewhere where I could not see it.
I thought I was rid of it forever.

The days, the nights passed.
I thought my love for you had diminished.
I hated you, hated myself for failing you.
My love had gone awry----why else would you have left?
I met this other guy, nothing like you,
except his wounds were deep, in fact deeper than yours.

If I had peered down into his heart,
I would have seen blackness.
Perhaps it escaped from his lungs
from too much chain smoking.
Perhaps it was because his mother
despised the world and especially him.
There was no joy in her womb
when he grew there, and then a surgeon
went and cut it away. She would grow
no more children of darkness there.
(He nicknamed her "The Spayed Bitch")

What I knew was that we were sad.
His eyes said as much when we sat
in parking lots, watching the world
move back and forth, silent throught closed windows.
I wanted to love him, and he feared love as much as you did.
But he was greedy and wanted more than I could give
or was willing to offer.

He took what he thought I should have given him.
Left me for dead in a marshy back road
though we both returned home that night physically intact
but in tatters. Neither of us would be the same.
He called me two nights later and wept and told me
not to hate him. I hated no one, just myself
though the world grew colder and dimmer, something
I thought could not be possible after your leaving.

But I wasn't thinking of you.
I was thinking of myself and how I needed
to live and needed to learn how.
For what did you care?
You were gone, and I had to fend for myself
alone despite your promises, despite my having given
everything, yes, everything away.

-Jennifer Santos Madriaga