The Lime Trees

The house was falling apart. You know,

shutters hanging, closet door off its tracks,

some wide blinking

brown eyes through the jagged hole

in the middle. Someone kicked it.

Chipping paint shaping a new Pangaea

across the walls. I got lost

peeling it like I would dead

sunburnt skin on my shoulders.

Leaks from where the roof was flat,

a crack curving down the center

of the porcelain tub that we used to

fill with hot water and soak

together in overflowing bubbles

like nothing was

wrong. The end always

us fucking on the damp blue rug

beside us. Once I tried to blame

the hurricanes, but they never came,

only some heavy rain. In truth, the wind

had been calm for a long time. Some nights

were empty, not just the lot

of empty bottles around, beer, 

some rum. Part of an old poem was taped

to the fridge. It said

the art of losing isn’t hard to master

before you ripped it down. I learned

about the difference between love

and attachment from a book first

and then from you.

If I could hate, I could hate you

for kicking the closet door 

that time you tried to kick my dog, 

for that time you kicked my dog.

Then she started hiding in the closet

every time you raised your voice.

You even kicked 

the two baby lime trees

which I bought just before you moved in

and perched with sticks until they were strong

enough to hold themselves up. You never kicked me,

because as much as it might seem like I mentioned

the lime trees to serve as a metaphor for me, they’re not.

I left the day you threw a glass jar of coconut oil

at my face, which was only a day after you started

all the kicking. I can’t say I didn’t 

cry a lot, or that it wasn’t excruciating 

to walk away and so fast.

I did, and it was. 

But the way memory works 

is not so easy.

I still remember how you'd

hold me in your metal arms

like a magnet.