Key Lime Pie

Eventually, I stopped making the pies.

She stopped coming around.

She had a new boyfriend, she said.

He’d wrecked a car once to prove how much he loved her.

Days later, I just told her, “Good for you.”

I only half meant it.

I suppose he’s still around; I hope so.

Then her Father got sick

And I knew how that was hitting her.

I’d only met him twice, but I immediately liked him

He loved VU but not Bowie, she had told me.

She had the t-shirt to prove it.

And still, I sent her drunken texts, just making it harder for her.

Some of the most inhumane things I’ve ever done.

And things just kept getting worse for her Dad.

I’d lay in bed, not able to imagine how she was carrying this.

Because I have the same to-the-core terror of my Mom going.

And I love her, so it made me feel good thinking about her boyfriend helping her through this.

So I kinda came to love him from some unknown distance.

We shared infrequent texts, and they made me feel like she might escape it all for now,

that he was maybe pulling through.

And that made me ripple with relief.

I just kept on drinking and shrinking my world.

Burning away whole days in darkness

losing interest in everything.

But still thinking of her and her Dad.

One night I told her I’d hang with her Dad if it would help.

He was home from the hospital and transformed into someone who needed help

From someone like me or hopefully better.

She said I was a good man. I can’t accept that

But I told her I loved her.

She said it too.

I woke up a few days later.

She had texted me while I was trying to escape the day in a pitch dark bedroom.

My Dad’s gone, she said.

I started crying and threw the phone out of reach on my bed,

rolled over and started shaking my legs.

And I just thought of her.

And I wished I could just hold her like a friend

For as long as it took for her to do whatever it is we do

With this sort of shattering.