Mr. X

Dear Mr. X, 

I would like you to know my life is going well.

I wanted to let you know

that I am taking your advice. 

I kept my options open,

like you did in our relationships as you promised yourself to me, 

to see who is fit for your old role.

I was doing well until I came upon a picture in my phone.

It is of me and a friend. 

A friend that was so kind and so sweet, 

his lips were made of candy. 

His heart was made of the purest of pure gold.

He was my friend, my lover. 

He is you. 

You now as a stranger, 

who does not see me as me, 

but as a person to pass in the grocery line without saying “hello”, 

as a stranger.

I miss you. No, I miss him. You who was him. I miss us. Not us as “now”, but us as “then”.

  I wish that he would come back to me, 

pushing himself into my arms.

But this wish seems too much for the universe to bear

because It knows that my old flame, the love of my life, 

is the man I am writing to now.

So I say this to you, my dear old friend. 

Orevwa moun lot nasyon. 

• poetry