“X’s mean everything”
Is what she’d told him,
Little reveals of his love
When he couldn’t be near.
She’d never expected them from him,
But with her, he’d been a lover,
Devoted through and through
And every time he sent them,
They were the simplest thing that somehow
Managed to spread her heart further open,
A radiant flower blooming to reach more of the sun.
She clung to the x’s like his real life kisses
Despite the naysayers
The doubts, the fears
That’s why she’s startled when she sees them
In his sporadic notes now—
These little promises of love that contradict
The chaos he has run them through
The distance he has put between them
The everlasting silence echoing around her
When she reaches out for him and calls his name,
Because he is no longer really there
Not for her.