Rooms Left Behind

Looking out from our little squares through smaller squares (or circles). Windows into windows—transparent connections to bridge the separations of distance and poor vision. It feels safe. Writing trash, tragedy, or trivia in the privacy of this way of being public. An introvert’s design. Do you long to be invited, and then resent the invitation? Welcome.

I close the door, making sure not to wake you. You are a deep sleeper. You have that leeway. It doesn’t occur to you that I will leave. Of course not. There is no reason. You don’t realize that the reason belongs to a tiny one; it is a convincing piece of razor-sharp information that echoes through time. I have been following its directions for decades now.

I am a light sleeper, a psychic sleeper, eternally prepared for what has not happened and happened long ago. I know you will leave. When you do, I will already be gone.

You are in the room I’ve just left. The room is floating in another galaxy. The pillows and trinkets and old shoes, the stack of unread books, it all belongs to you now. You are no longer familiar to me, even as I trace the nape of your neck, perspiration clinging to my fingertips. I have stepped out of the portrait. Nothing left behind, nothing one can see. The scene looks complete without me. Viewers love the colors and brush strokes. Your love is tattooed somewhere on my skin. Perhaps my DNA will clog your pores. The presence of having left. Maybe I loved you. Too late to turn back. I am a psychic, remember?

It is one of so many rooms entered and exited. We add to the scents of singular and shared habitation. The smells remain. Our special odors seep into the materials and stay behind. In the velvet and burlap. The faint aromas of memory catch in our throats. They settle, whether or not we do.

I remember the perfume of your pipe. I can call it forward. I have to look at a photo to recall your features, but your tobacco is always just a whiff away. I was just a baby, all talcum and sweat, dozing fitfully on my back in the room you left behind.