Rain pings against windows,
slides down gutters,
collects in slushy piles
when it should be snowing.
Awake at 1:30—again—
when I should be sleeping.
Crying when I should be smiling
that it’s over. Because I don’t want
to be with him anymore
and can finally say that and mean it.
Because I don’t envy the woman
I unintentionally met today—
the one who took my place.
But remember those eleven months
of devotion, the one year of having
a Valentine, those three words
I got used to hearing, listening to his heart
beat, not thinking there would ever
come a day when he’d say goodbye,
his final farewell a kiss on the forehead
and the words “I still love you.”
Because I went home alone—again—
to a dark, unwanted
apartment and a black
cat and she went
home to him.
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