“You’re a Person”

Hanging the ghost sheets on the blue sky and I wonder how time has decided to spread across your face. May it be even and inviting like the PB and J’s we made at our old house, may it be comfortable like the blanket thrown out against the green lawn, we liked potato salad on the red blanket, my mother’s recipe.

I know time has decided to slash me like an ex boyfriend's car tires, only, it’s worked slowly, patiently cutting deeper and deeper wrinkles, making sure I really understand the pain of growing older. I understand it more than perhaps anything else. When I look into the mirror my mistakes are carved in small lines beside my eyes, around my mouth, below my chin.

I vacuum the rug and play pretend, but along with your football jerseys, TV- coasters, and the toaster we bought together, you folded up my imagination and stuffed it in your suitcase. I’ve searched for it and this is the only explanation.

“You’re a person,” my kids tell me. But I’m not, I’m just a shell that time is trying to get rid of. Of course, this is not your fault. Once you pulled the plug, drained yourself from me, I only realized I was never anything anyway. Just a box for people to put things in. Just a dishwasher to shove last night's plates into. All I am is a bedsheet that time is folding up slowly.