A Little Modern Love Regret-Thing (Vixen's Den)

The odor of sugar, tobacco, and

Sex

Lingered in the room,

Large enough to inhabit

The whole of the building

And spread out to the block-

That was your scent-

And I have never been a kink for stink,

Being more visual than olfactory

In orientation, but it's your scent I recall,

Like a dog scenting out the same prey,

Hunting season coming round after

A year (that's a long, long seven to a dog).

Not the sight of you,

Though I studied that face.

It was so something,

So obvious-

In your face, a child, a man-older,

All you.

Not the touch of you,

Though how I cried

When I was shut of your

Muscular solidity,

And my arms felt empty

And my whole soul bare,

And didn't I compare

Other bodies to yours-

So hard and yet gentle

And packed with determined grace.

(Oh, but you were not the greatest lover,

I'll have you know,

Now that I lay myself bare.

You were too deliberate,

Fixated on my pointless orgasms and your own.

Even I knew better than to say that.

Then.)

I wasted time, thinking on you.

I thought of chance encounters

Never to be had,

On my own redemption,

As if I had sinned-

But all I did was love

And accept that I was one long

One-nighter

And when dawn at last came,

You slipped out of the window

And into the day.

But so you know-

Here's me-

Older, wiser, better-

My love could put you away,

And I belong to no one now,

In the way you never belonged to me,

And I once belonged to you.

And maybe you still belong to no one,

Or maybe a little bit of you,

To more women than you can count.

Maybe other women you knew

Think of you that way,

Wondering where you are

Beyond the bridges you burned.

But they can't put it into the words

I do.

But they must realize,

Like I do,

There is no you to hold,

To belong to.

You are a scent on the air,

Or a deliberate touch,

Or a theme in a story

You don't hear

Every day.

You are a romantic, and a cynic,

And a constant judge.

I loved you once.

I think of you still,

Like a mystery I never got

And never will.


You are gone, and I'm still here.