so go

Neither of us raised anything.

That is the part I keep going back to.

We had the worst conversation of my life

at the volume you would use in a library.

You asked me what I wanted you to do

and I said the honest thing, once, flatly.

I said go, because I meant stay,

and I had got tired of asking properly.

So go. So go.

I have never meant anything less.

So go, so go —

and you did, and you were quick about it.

You were out in under a minute.

Not cruel about it. Efficient. Ready.

You had been packed for a while, I think,

and I had been making plans.

That is the whole difference between us

and it was there the entire time

and I was the last person in the building

to work out what the difference was.

So go. So go.

Nothing in me wanted that.

So go, so go —

and the worst thing is you looked relieved.

And I did not shout. I have never shouted.

I have a whole life of not shouting

stacked up somewhere behind my chest

with nowhere to put it and no way out.

So I sat there afterwards with the light on

being reasonable at absolutely nobody,

and then I stood up in an empty flat

and I finally made the sound.

Not at you. You were three hours gone.

At nothing. At an empty room.

At everything I had swallowed for eleven years,

and it came out of me like something breaking.

So go. You went.

I am the one still stood in it.

So go, so go —

and I said it in the end, and there was nobody in the room.