Bottled Up

By S.K.

Isn’t the space between us enough to squeeze yet another year and after that, and so on, and so on?

Isn’t the space between us enough to squeeze yet another year
And another after that, and so on, and so on?
Changes cascade down the two tantalizing hands of the clock:
Your collar, your confidence, your car
But gravity doesn’t budge. 

I’ve been trailing behind your dust on this circular track,
You slow down and we both crash. 
Every time we glance,
The world undoes a knot in its tight charade,
Our freedom lurks like the moon on the horizon. 

We sit in the front seat of a moving car, 
It’s peak of afternoon and through the window
A quick sublime heat spills onto our faces
But every other second, the trees intervene
Just us together in a single shadow. 

You pull on my insides like a maddening hangnail
God only knows what happens when you make that exasperating final snap
So proceed to mock me with your back and forth
Know it still burns as lonely as the first fever,
Though now we have twin calluses of patience and pine. 

Only yesterday, you left the bottle you downed on my coffee table, 
(It slipped my mind to throw it out)
It sat there, taking every inch of me in as I watched TV alone
(Imagining we were the lovers inside the screen) 
Eventually, I sat it on one of my desk corners,
(A souvenir of travels that faded like childhood)
I reckon a sip still lingers there.

Process

This poem came in bits and pieces. The idea of the bottle came first, one person leaving a physical reminder behind to almost torment the other. I was thinking a lot about patience, and how resilient one must become when what they desire is within their reach, but not their grasp. I realized there was so much to say about this feeling that one must keep bottled up, eventually it all spilt out into this piece.