Maine Dile Se Kaha

I'm trying to forget the poetry I wrote in my mind years ago, lying next to him, tracing the constellation of freckles on his arms. I called him my year-round valentine, and I folded the tiny piece of paper over and over before slipping it into a more conventional greeting card, whose delicate, pale insides mentioned nothing about private jokes using special voices.

Those voices, though special, are in the distance now, and they're no longer piercing. Canned laughter follows me, the shape I've become, the space I warmly occupy, solitary and safe. I remember smelling the cinnamon of his jacket. I remember our first fight. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," he said, and I spent almost seven years trying not to,

and mostly succeeding, except when I failed, and he cleared his throat, and I wept. I'm trying to forget the poetry I wrote in my mind years ago, lying in bed alone, dividing my care between the cold space next to mine and the confessions brewing in his brain. I had wished I were his country, his school, his job. I had wished I were older, wiser, all healed-up. My eyes grew darker, and it was harder to distinguish his freckles from stars, his anger from worry. The constellations bled together, their wisdom now hidden.

Someone is playing an Indian melody as I write. Her voice cracks and strains; her heart breaks. I wash down the remaining symbol of my embarrassment and try to forget the poetry I wrote in my mind years ago, when love was new, its delicate, pale insides mentioning nothing about the private jokes that aren't funny, the special voices that crack and strain.