he broke me

(A throw-back piece, a breakup poem from high school) What a lonely, peculiar, eccentric figure I must be. A girl, in a garden, crying at an iPad, in the dark. Earlier, at school... It was a clear spelling out, like steel cuts thru fruit. As he spoke, he looked down and away, his gorgeous face blank and indifferent, as if I were wasting his time or he was talking to a child needing an obvious truth taught quickly. When he finally looked back at me, I saw no pity in his impersonal, hazel eyes. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I needed time to contemplate the universe's new laws. Can a girl just suddenly die of heartache?? because I was sure my heart had stopped, locked and frozen. Finally, I gasped in this impossible new air—the force of it made me hold the cold-iron stair railing—the game is rough. He's so—male—all chase and careless passion—intelligent teaser, a skilled steersman of excited climates... Oh, you simply have no idea. And now he was, gone—still there physically—but gone to me—as if he'd transformed into a hologram or had begun to orbit some other sun, he just... "You made me feel special." I said. I had lost my balance on this faithless and unequal world, where heaven so cruelly punishes desires. "You made me feel I mattered, such a favor." I said, absentmindedly, as I turned, and went back up the three steps into school. I don't think I looked back at him as the door closed. After all, he wasn't there anymore. I think he called my name, like a question... . . Song for this: Still Is Still Moving to Me (with Willie Nelson) by Toots & The Maytals Helpless by The Cleaners From Venus