The reasons for it.

I play everything back: your hands

in my hair, your hometown, the ride there,

 

how the sky looked when I stuck my head

out the window—like the dark shell of a bomb

waiting to explode. The gas station was god

 

and it saw everything: The chicken sandwiches warming

under the heat lamps. The wrinkles in the lone worker’s

face. How the harsh yellow glow made you look,

 

for the first time, like someone human, someone

I could hurt. When I think about loss

I don’t think about you anymore.

 

I think about me. How I looked

when you decided to leave.

Laughing, red, glowing

 

in the dark—the sky

beyond the neons beginning

to detonate.