I and Me

[sleepinthewoods]

I and Me

I punched our story into a dusty keyboard,
my words pouring out like the summer floods.
I had two seasons to write before the
cold would come to freeze our story
into place. I pressed to get through

(like impetuous water,
against a slowly breaking dam),

And for two seasons I lived in letters,
(chipping dutifully away
in any direction but stillness)
and words squeezed through my knuckles,
dripping like rain onto the keys.

When I, breathless, punched our story’s
last letters into place, the smell of
autumn’s first frost dusted the air
and a fading sunlight fell over my fingers.

(the dam, finally ruptured,
and a precipitate rushing of water.)

I shifted my eyes to the page
to read, for the first time, our story.

My face felt suddenly cold.
My limp fingers shook.
My typewriter, I found, my typewriter,

it was -

This couldn't be happening.
After two seasons of diligence,
of desperate precision and
calculated narration, of planning
and punching and writing our life
into the spaces between each space,

I had written my whole story
without the letter U.
And anywhere You should be,
I found only Yo,

Spanish for I,

Awaiting the winter alone.

(unpitying ice,
You above the broken dam,
upstream, unreachable.)