where sorry only makes it worse.
She wipes under one eye.
Then the other.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” she says.
“It ended a long time ago,” he replies.
I sink deeper into my hoodie,
feeling the cold shiver up my spine
and settle in my chest.
A chill I’m going to carry home with me.
Celie doesn’t speak.
Not when he stands.
Not when he says her name.
Not when he walks away.
And when he disappears into the curve of the dark path
where streetlights don’t reach,
she stays, frozen?—
one hand limp in her lap,
the other gripping the bench
trying not outlive him walking away.
She doesn’t chase him or beg or scream.
She sits there,
staring at the absence he left behind,
still hoping he might change his mind
and fill it again.
And I?—
I can’t move.
My heart’s reaching for Celie
with bloody knuckles, like?—
Take me. Yours cracked. You can have me.
And I have to pin Heart down with both hands to keep her from giving her entire self away again.
