by Samuel J. Fox
In this house there is an ache. In this ache there is a reason. There is a reason in
this ache. I squandered love as though spending magic on something mundane.
She was mundane. She was magic: an angel shattered its aureole whenever she
smiled, jealous. She fell out of love, did not tell the lover, who lives in this house that has an ache. She led him on for years.
One day, she confessed he was not enough to fill her heart. There is a beast for a
man now. He has tried everything. Potions. Ointments. Ritual and séance: looking for whatever part of a man dies when love leaves.
I would like to say, as the narrator, things get better. This is sometimes the case. Everyone after found him quaint, but also not enough. He cannot fill a heart. He cannot fill a void.
Sometimes, I hear him crying, chain smoking peppermint menthols into the night under a moon he is small beneath. Sometimes, I hear him yipping like a coyote. Rabid for love.
He has become the knocking behind the wall. Has disappeared behind the secret
bookshelf door. He wanted to believe in love, but, it seems, love does not
believe in him.
I go to the house in the middle of the neighborhood, the one with dead leaves dried from the remaining heat of summer, the same with the leaning swing creaking in the wind, the same where the door remains locked and cigarettes litter the porch.
I remove the key from my pocket. I walk in and relock the door. Away from the eyes of others, I let down my human skin. This is what happens when love forgets.
This is what happens when that part of a man dies.
Samuel J. Fox is a bisexual poet and essayist living in the Southern US. He is poetry editor at Bending Genres LLC and has been published in many online and print journals. Find Samuel on Twitter @samueljfox or at a coffee shop, graveyard, dilapidated place in Statesville, NC.
