An Open Letter To All My Ex’s
I
As I look out the window this morning
I see your faces in newly pressed snow,
sheets of ice on the barn door,
patterns of fog on the windshield.
I see shades of your eyes in burned-out stoplights,
urging me forward, forcing me to stop.
II
Let’s get one thing settled: I know it was your fault too.
I just painstakingly take the blame because it’s more compact then;
aerodynamic. I become sleek with guilt, hurtling obsessively onward.
It never mattered if we shared the ending or what came after—
That is for me to cherish and ponder, regret and demolish,
Reconstruct until it makes sense, resembles a reality I can understand.
III
I know that besides death there is no ending,
And even then we can’t be sure. I know that we all need, want, crave—
We’ve all sat on sofas and listened to lesbian mothers
Cry with their children. I know now that nothing is guaranteed,
Not even the prospect of a perfect memory,
so I’m going to write everything I remember about you:
IV
You were stunning, placid, peaceful.
You were thoughtful and well read, tragic to a degree.
As the lowest common denominator, we were intense.
I fed you pasta dishes and desserts, drank beer or wine,
(orange juice in the days before I had this monster sedated.)
I worshipped your body, if only for a night—
became violently angry if only internally.
I missed you whether I wrote a novel about it
or dreamed of burning your house down again and again.
V
I have wanted to kill every single one of you.
VI
To be quite honest, I’m glad you left.
If you hadn’t I would have forced you to leave, or left myself–
any conceivable end so long as the ending was tragic. Tragedy
makes us feel alive, and in that respect I owe my life to you–
But let’s not be melodramatic. At some point we must accept
that we are who we are and whatever it was about me
that you hated so much, I still do it:
I’m still passive aggressive. I still bite my fingernails.
I still eat out constantly. I still have trouble getting out of bed.
I still don’t like to have sex with a condom. I still love writing,
laughing and Grazianos more than I will ever love you.
I still drink.
VII
But I don’t believe in crying foul, maligning, disdaining—not anymore,
because where would you be without me? Who would have shown you
what not to do: made the dopiest of new lovers
Carey Grant by comparison? From me you gleaned freedom and guilt,
a love for boxed wine and mixtapes.
Leaving gave you fear and self-loathing, tiny yellow birds,
new ways to masochise, violent altercations in the car.
Your leaving allowed me candor, passion, fire.
My faceless anger bloomed, enabled by your apathy and disdain.
Your leaving prompted my greatest excavations and I’ll admit
its better this way, just don’t pretend that I welcomed your leaving—
I would have shattered a thousand windshields to make you stay.
VIII
I guess the point is that there is no point.
You are my internal debtors, outward anxieties,
IRS agents, fondest memories, best, worst or non-existent lays.
You are my chewed-on slippers and the dog that refused to fetch them.
You are in every god damn song I have ever heard
and every piece I have ever written, composing syllables
and sonnets within me, fusing together bits of glorious memory,
delete-able as my parents flesh.
IX
One day I will die
and your children will notice that faraway look in your eyes
and you’ll try to explain
but they’ll just roll their eyes and tell a friend
’some guy died’
like it never really mattered.
Adam