i've got, what, 170 recipes.
each one indexed
to some register of sweetness.
all of them archived
on instagram.
i daydream about
the timbre of your voice,
the resonance
your chest makes
when you sip
something strong.
you told me you were sick
of your multiple jobs,
your boss, your new friends
but you never stopped
circling back
to that georgia o'keeffe show.
neither did i.
it doesn't help
that they keep a piece of her
in my school's museum.
i go look at it sometimes.
not for you.
for the proof
that an afternoon like that
was ever available.
deep down i know
these recipes are prayerful —
saved in the hope
you'll break the silence,
or that thing
we've been carrying
for years,
and say
i'm coming over,
and it hasn't
materialized yet.
are you still vegan,
or did you relapse into milk?
you liked it
in your hot chocolate.
there's something crude about
being this proximate —
same city,
same weather,
same sky.
have you muted my stories?
have you blocked my number?
cruising as a
desire kept in deferral,
because deferral
is how a thing
stays possible.
a cruising,
crushing desire.
the only evidence i've managed to preserve
that you still occupy me —
that every future with you
stays not-yet,
which is to say
stays.
a gaze that refuses to resolve.
a bet placed on the possible.
uncertainty
not the defect
but the whole condition.
i know exactly what i want.
that's not the same as
believing it will come.
it isn't a failure of wanting.
to archive 170 recipes
with this kind of devotion
is to keep insisting
that an afternoon
i have never had
is owed to me anyway.
i cruise, and the risk
is that no one comes.
i search
"cortázar, badly"
knowing the finding
was never the point.
still trying to find
a new shepherd's pie you could eat.
a new peach scone you would love.
a new pretext
to write your name
into my contacts
and finally ask
how the hell you've been.
or finally say
i've missed you terribly.