after math, seven and a half

1.
it doesn't feel like
seven and a half minutes
as she watches
herself from the
corner breaking all her rules.

2.
I tried to write a song
about bridges. all I found were
white lines a mile wide.
you keep taking my poems.

3.
it doesn't feel like seven
and a half minutes
and it's snowing out the window
on the bridge and she is
wilting, becoming turmoil and
piano fingers tracing the
contours of innocence.

4.
I looked at myself
in the mirror. looked at myself
looking at myself. I couldn't
remember how to be real
again.

5.
It doesn't feel like seven and
a half minutes
as she prays to the
car alarm going off on the
street of his building
and the air conditioner and
the bridges for seven and a
half minutes to make sense
again to her.

6.
I watched the snow melt,
come back,
melt again. two years felt like those
seven and a half minutes
that I didn't want after all.