One Sided Pay Phone

I called your phone today.
Correction -- I tried calling you today.

After the third ring,
I hung up because
admitting I wanted
to hear your voice
was much more harder
than simply walking away.

I tried writing a poem today.
Correction -- I tried to deny your taste.

After making a chai vanilla tea,
I sat in darkness until
realizing I left the tea bag
on the counter; it was bitter
by the time I found out
spoiled milk only makes
for a very, very bad lie.

I tried forgetting you today.
Correction �"  it’s been a week
and four days since I last
saw your ghost looming on
my night stand; tonight
I drink a cold chai tea,
and wonder how to survive
the winter when birth
started in the form of
autumn leaves trailing toddlers
tracing tulips that strangers
have dropped �" I am wary
becoming close with wrong people again,
yet we all do, we all do.

I tried calling you with a pay phone;
three quarters later and the silence
was the confirmation that hello’s
are fractured figments of finally
fleeting from fallouts forlornly fixated
from failing forgiveness;
you can’t call back the homeless,
and the cracks in the sidewalk
felt more like home than you ever did.