that X has left me…
but…
You don’t even know who X is.
You don’t know when it started, or who made the first move, whether it was sudden, or a gradual seeping realisation. You don’t how long it went on for… if it was love, lust, affection, or something else entirely. You don’t know if we talked until dawn, or just fucked like it was going out of fashion. Whether we ever fought, and made up, or if we ever used the word love.
I haven’t told you anything, but now, I want to tell you that X has left me, as gone back to her, or, rather, never entirely left her. It’s not a surprise. Their relationship hung over us like the dead rose, a gift from her, still pinned to the wall above the bed.
X told me over lunch in a café, and outside the window these bright leaves danced in the wake of passing cars. Like hope, growing out of the rubbish. False hope, bright leaves still holding all the zest for life, cut off from life, tossed away. I am not meaning for this to be a metaphor for what was going on in my life. I just looked out the window and saw these leaves.
I’m not sad about this ending. It wasn’t all roses. Really, it’s for the best.
I’m sad because I realise now that it has altered so much.
There’s no “before” left to go back to. Only pages that still carry the imprint of the marks we made.
> ecoqueer is a queer ecoanarchafeminist artist living down under in Aotearoa. she spends her time painting, reading, planting trees, walking in mountains, gardening, joining peace marches, learning te reo, and writing writing writing…
And bludging off the taxpayer, I bet, with a resume like that,