The Last Time I Saw You Still Breaks My Heart
Your fingers were saying goodbye To each notch in my spine. Like you were writing a resignation letter Straight to my bones, An apology for leaving half-finished
When we woke up that morning,
I knew it would be the last time I saw you.
What I didn’t know yet
Was how you would watch me from the corner,
As I pulled off your shirt
And pulled on my dress.
How when I would ask you for help with the buttons
That my hands couldn’t reach,
You would sit up so quickly
And then take your time –
Like your fingers were saying goodbye
To each notch in my spine.
Like you were writing a resignation letter
Straight to my bones,
An apology for leaving half-finished,
A job that you just couldn’t do anymore.
What I didn’t know yet
Was how I would sit on your lap,
Press my face into your shoulder
And find nothing to say.
How stupid this would seem to me later
When I looked at myself in the mirror,
And could only see
All of the words that I had for you.
I didn’t know yet
How I would wrap my hands around your head,
So I could feel the exact place
Where your hair met your neck.
Or how I would stop at the end of your stairs,
To wonder what would happen if I climbed back up them.
How for the longest time I would think of you
As my hardest goodbye,
Until someone else came along
Who would eventually steal all of your thunder.
What I couldn’t have known yet
Was the way I would still remember you now:
Looking at me with your arm out the window,
And my name in your mouth –
How you didn’t seem to mind as much as I did,
That it was the last time I would hear you say it out loud. 
