Sure, it’s been a couple years and I’m sure in my way that although I never say so I sometimes wonder how she is and oh so secretly sometimes wish she’d just say a little something like hello or even venture a tentative and brittle how are you but what then and why what difference would it make what’s the point of such a secret wish whether it’s spoken or not

I’d just have to come up with an oh hey remember all THAT how could we forget a 9.7 seismic love but I know I’ve tried yes you too I see you’ve always been outwardly better at that where for me it’s as inwardly-outwardly futile as this conversation anyway how are you now the same I bet me too mostly because it’s not like we really change we just change in the same ways we always did kind of reply, beset with sighing silences and breathless gaps marked by signs saying do not touch, it’d be better if you didn’t

so I don’t. I need not touch and I need not tell her I’m almost sort of maybe more than a little part of me glad we did touch back then when we both knew for facts we shouldn’t but thought—not without some fictions—that we just had to, compelled by magic and dubious fortune and sweeping everyone around us up in our gusty blip.

I need not tell her that the other day while mindlessly navigating traffic I found myself feeling suddenly somberly relieved, really and truly and honestly relieved I’ll never ever again be able to say “I’d never” because I did and now there’s one less thing to imagine myself as, one more thing I’ve been, one less thing to pretend she is, one more thing we’re not. And goddamn if that didn’t feel reminiscent of good.

So instead I feel ok enough now and now say it secretly like the poet I wish I was, emulated imaginary, remembering what I am, which is the one who told her we could never speak again, the one who changes, changes, if nothing else I change, but “I’d never” change enough to change that.