REASONABLE ONE BLISTER
Aaron Wilder
How long ago was it that you decided
to delete me from your life for good?
It would have been the best Summer
I could have ever remembered,
but now August will eat away at me
as its wine turned to acid in my mouth.
Your remembered image still burns my throat to this day.
Sky Harbor only haunts me now that you won’t
speak to me in that Southern way.
You found a way to sneak in
through my barbed wire and concrete complex.
I let you break my rules and,
in the end, I guess I let you break me too.
So, hollow and abandoned, I stare out
at a completely different ocean than you.
Does this continent know it’s letting you torture me with silence?
I guess you both have that in common:
neither of you give a damn.
I’m not sure what happened to you
after you lay over me,
reclined in the driver’s seat of your old Nissan.
As the rain smeared the windshield,
I lightly brushed your hair aside with my fingers.
I told your eyes with mine that you were different
as the windows started to fog.
I felt a feeling for you,
one not felt by me for someone else in a long time.
I hope you’ll never forget the sound of my stereo
as we looked over the city.
A city that’s known me for nineteen years,
that only got a glimpse of your face.
Maybe this was all just in my dreams,
but I’m certain that reality just intoxicated me with your voice.
Maybe I’m just in love with the idea of you.
But of all the questions I can think of to ask you,
I can’t fathom the answer to even one.
All I’m asking for is the reason.
If I’m ever near you, just know
that my guard will never be let down again.
I promise you’ll be the only blister to callous me.
