SAVIOR COMPLEX

ravenous like a first kiss

You are a memory I have no use for, I am filing you away like old tax forms. There are piles upon piles already in the home office; I wouldn’t be able to find you again, even if I went looking, and that’s a promise. The mechanical hum of the shredder, it gets lodged and paper spills like boiled over pasta water. I was once in your kitchen, I was once there so often I could’ve been the kettle or toaster. I could’ve been the soup on the burner. And maybe for a moment I thought it was my birthright to be the thing that fed you, to be a fixture on the counter. The winter was harsher than we could’ve planned for, the spring wasn’t a warm welcome either. I dropped a skillet and fell to the floor right with it, inconsolable and pathetic. Admittedly, I do still remember the way you held me, like you could absolve me of myself; of what had happened then, of how it stuck with me now. A savior complex, ravenous like a first kiss. Should’ve sniffed it out but it wouldn’t of made a difference. I tell a friend that I’ve forgiven it, she reminds me that you haven’t apologized yet. Your room was always shades of orange, bedside squinting in make-believe sun. If love is blinding then I must’ve looked directly into the light. Limbs tepid with sleep; sometimes we both wore your boxers, sometimes we canopied under comforters. Hidden in the exhale between day and night. I don’t often remember your voice and now the accent startles me. You’d be unrecognizable if you passed me on the street. I’ve been basking in the heat; you’ve been up to your knees, nothing but cowardly. I made you a doorway, broad shouldered and steady. Turning the knob, I have walked through and out into the bright blue. Swan diving, it slides off my back like water droplets. I pocketed your signet, sometimes I still twist it; there’s a tan line where it sits. I would take it off but I like what it represents.