No, I won’t be coming by this evening. The truth is, I’m still much too upset about the expressive deer and how the woman grabbed and held her sculpted antler firm, the animal wildly tossing her head in protest — unable to wrest herself from opposable monkey grip.
I slept restlessly, then not at all, disturbed by the scene still replaying in my mind — and bothered also by you - the upset wouldn’t dissipate.
You left to check the gate, or so you said, then came back an hour later with a woman — it seems you paraded around the park together in the dark, twinkle-lit glow. You introduced us — and I learned she knows me as the one who tends your cat when you’re away and nothing more — despite all the other ways we’ve been together. Funny how I’ve never heard you speak of her excepting one casual mention two weeks ago in which it appears I mistook her for a casual professional acquaintance (when it seems I should have thought of more).
In haste and awkwardness you thrust leftover chocolate wrapped in ziplock bag into her hands. All the others having left, just the three of us remaining, I turned to retrieve my things and found you left without me, escorting her to the exit. We could have walked as three. If she wasn’t there you would have waited — (as you’re known to do at evening’s end) but as it was, this time I was forgotten. You walked her to her car and I walked to mine alone — shaken from overstimulation — an evening gone too long, compounded by unexpected turns. Under spotlight glare above, I began to cry.
I felt too much at once and knew not what to do. So, circling under fallen night, pulling up along the lake, running the heater on high, ignoring the lying lights on water (no longer scenes of cozy christmas cheer but gestures of hurts instead) — I put pen to paper in darkness — hoping to later redeem my scrawl and make some sense of things.
It dawned on me that she’s the one you share your songs and thoughts with now — your current casual flirtation. Your screen lit up beside me through long dark drive the night before —— while I navigated lonely, aching void, you were most attentive elsewhere via text. Not so long ago you gave that piece of you to me. You were fun and playful then, affectionate too — before your long departure and subsequent guarded return.
Two weeks ago something wild lay down to rest inside of me. I achieved a state of confidence emboldening me to express my needs quite plainly — a final bid for a two-way friendship. I thought it the arrival I’d been seeking between us. But last night something cracked.
I myself am the deer — my antlers twisted in your primal grasp these many months. All my efforts to navigate, understand, extract — I fought you as well as my own desires and you used the kinds of words that kept me held in hope. Last night all gave way and I find myself bleeding and wounded, but free.
