Trying to Build Her Again

Don’t ask

how sure I am about you

I wouldn’t be happy
to answer

she looked at me
one last time
and smiled

she thought I was joking

but my sombre face
didn’t change

my voice was serious

a cigarette
between my fingers

smoke rising
between us

she almost cried

I didn’t know
you would go this low
just to get rid of me

when did you start smoking?

you never used to smoke

before I could finish
the cigarette

she had already left
crying

I couldn’t say anything

it all ended
once and for all

then came
packs of cigarettes
in the following days

more bottles of beer
wine
local ales

all kinds of intoxication
to get rid of the memory

but the memory
grew heavier

so heavy
that I began meeting
random people on dates

trying to pretend
I was different

but I saw her
in every person I met

her hand
caressing my hair
when the headache
became too much

her smile
at my silly jokes

I missed
that expression

still
I kept trying
to build her again
from random people

taking one thing
from one person
another thing
from someone else

but the pieces
never fitted

and none of them
ever made me feel whole

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One response to “Trying to Build Her Again”

  1. Sheknowsallblog Avatar

    Taking one thing from one person, another thing from someone else, but the pieces never fitted” that’s such a raw, honest way to describe grief after loss. We do this, don’t we, chase fragments of what we lost in strangers, hoping enough pieces will finally add up to whole. But love was never a collection of traits to reassemble. It was the specific way she caressed your hair when the headache got bad, the particular sound of her laugh at your jokes. Nobody else carries that combination. This poem sits with that ache honestly, without pretending there’s an easy fix. Powerful writing.

    Like

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