Sylvie Too Soon
Most middle of the nights I’m up
replaying a mistake or two. I have my go-tos,
the things that flutter
to the surface every time. Like when I told
a mom with a toddler that Winslow
was safe to pet right before my dumb dog
happy-nosed that kid right down
onto the pavement. Cue tears, recriminations.
Or when Cal let me ramble on about a book
I loved for twenty solid minutes
before he laughed and said, I never
have any idea what you’re talking about,
Sylvie, then kissed me. I wake up these days
too hot in too-thin sheets and I think
I’m living it, my biggest mistake but on loop, I drove
myself to the end of the world to escape it
and instead I doubled down and now
I’m all in, screwing up every minute,
outside the Greyhound station
watching a guy straight up selling baggies
out of his trench coat at Terminal 2
and is this the kind of life Knox was living before?
Am I awful and privileged if I think: actually, this place
looks kind of dangerous? I don’t want to save him
because I can’t, because that would make me judgmental.
But I want to save him from this. I want to drive away
with him. He’s taking too long
undoing his seat belt with his broken arm—is he
stalling? He’s stalling, I didn’t know
this could get worse—and when I lean over
to release him he’s right there, suddenly,
breathing harder, his eyes on mine,
and it’s a mistake any way I play it. If
I kiss him. If I don’t. If I said
I didn’t know this lay between us
I’d be lying. What kind of black widow spider
do I have to be to suck in someone else
just weeks after she’d killed the last one? If I say (and then
I’m saying it), Knox, please—you don’t have to go—
how long will it take me to forgive myself?