You Tried to Bury Me, But I’m Still Here and Remember It All Too Well

“You said if we had been closer in age,
maybe it would’ve been fine.”
— Taylor Swift, “All Too Well” (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)

I’m standing in my best friend’s kitchen
in Texas and she’s running through a list
of how we might spend our time together
and I remind her that I’ll never go back
to Enchanted Rock, that it was where
you and I had our last day trip after
you decided that you couldn’t marry me,
and my dad was dying in Kansas City
from the cancer that returned.
That day, I wore the hiking boots
my dad had gifted me before I started
working at Yellowstone National Park
to the highest point of rock.
I asked someone to take a photo
of us for a reason: to remind myself that
I was letting you go to a life you wanted
in New York. It would all be worth it,
I told myself, this is the right thing to do.

You were back, then suddenly not.
Two months after your visit, you called
to tell me that you had a girlfriend.
She was pregnant. I threw my phone.
My mom found me naked, sweating,
screaming, crying, in a bedsheet—
much like the day I was born,
much like the day your son was born.

*

“What good is buying a heifer that can’t birth calves?”

 
The smirking farmer I’m sitting across from
Is completely unaware of a possible reality: that—
Just across the ocean—
On a smaller farm in South France—
The sun burns far too warm for another farmer’s liking
But the crops are growing strong, thick, and slightly unruly.
On this farm— a wiry, old farmer
Sings to his cows, treats them with softening
Carrots, pampers them with compliments
On their God-given, dappled coats
and large, deep, domed eyes. And when
That inevitable, solemn day comes, he will slaughter
Them in the most humane way— a death so clean and
Affectionate— the kind of death to pray for.
But this would be unfathomable—
Absolutely absurd— for the farmer
Whose eyes are assessing me right now. To him,
Kindness is just another iron tool on the farm—
Just another sharpened,
hook-shaped prod.

***

(Featured image from Pexels)