On the Preoccupation of a Sentiment

I was leaning against the car when you approached.

There were calculations of skin and scales of awkwardness.

Memory isn’t love.

I mean, you kept asking me, what have you learned?

---

Sometimes the mind is a calculator, you know? Sometimes

the brain is calculating and the body is dancing. It’s dancing

so far and wild, legs and arms stretching until we resemble starfish.

You and I, we’re catching crawfish.

I reached out towards you, found air, learned how to measure the distance.

---

I mean, yes, I missed you.

You were never an intolerable tick.

If I were to add a few lines to this:

---

I counted the seconds between your breaths as if the sum could tell me when to leave. But the math of the knee is different from the math of the eye; one holds the weight while the other looks for the exit. We are just two heavy things vibrating in the dark, forgetting that zero is also a coordinate.