YOU SOLD MY FAVORITE BRAUTIGANS

You sold my favorite Brautigans (the red one and the yellow one). A young woman was reading them at the bar and I noticed my handwriting on the inside of one of the covers. The books were wet with substance that sat on the table. At first, the lady was upset when I took them from her and began inspecting them for other tell-tale signs that the books were mine. They were all there, the notes I'd written to you when I thought that we wouldn't ever not be together. I apologized for my behavior and paid the lady too much for what she saw as petty poetry books, not important enough to keep safe from spilled drink. When I got the books home, I spent an hour or two drying them, page by page so that they wouldn't stick together. Then I placed the books on a shelf so they could start collecting dust.

HEARTBREAK HAPPENS IN THE GUT

True heartbreak occurs in the gut,
not the heart.
It's a slow, symphonic chorus
born of the vibrations of
one hundred thousand strings at once.
It's the moment after you've
plunged into the water
and all the little bubbles
that had been refracting light
leave you behind.
They each burst
with a lazy,
dragging tone;
or else they just float away.
And it happens in your gut.
It happens slowly and
it happens in the dead center of you and
it doesn't stop happening.
It gurgles, and
it churns, and the cello
makes you languid
with worry, and the violin
slices your cells
until you're sitting,
immobile in fear, and
torn apart, and
you look around you, and
you see all of those things—
those things that used to make life
a place where you could breathe easily—
those things leave you,
those things turn on you, and
your stomach wrenches,
churns,
gasping
hoping
holding
waiting
waiting, and
sinking.