Time needed more you

This was my finger, running along the stitching of your jeans,
looking for imperfection,
and feeling failure
at finding nothing but perfection. Perhaps it
was just the light. Nothing should be
this correct.

We mistake yearning for grief
- and at this, you nod,
bringing the impetus for that tear to fall, a singular,
pioneering cascade of sorrow,
absolutely and,
yes, now I see it,
perfectly silent and clear.

See the weeks later, laid out
like a meal far too big for two.
Where to begin, and who will
eat what?
The sun has changed you, and also me,
I do not point the finger of blame one way.
Yet can you be blamed for the change?

I say this on a full stomach, when all I
really want to do is sleep or starve.
I am tired of the salt,
and there continues your tear,
drying to invisible powder,
its moisture re-absorbed by
your skin.
Devoured and nourishing,
repeating,
returning to the self.

It finds its way back in, like food,
through a most necessary fracture.
swallowed, gently torn apart,
digested.
Nothing is wasted when it comes
to feeding a hunger.
It must be fulfilled, it
cannot be anything else.
It cannot be a feeling unstitched, its
perfection does not allow it.