Love, Forgive Me by Sierra Demulder

My sister told me a soul mate is not the person 
who makes you the happiest but the one who 
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart

to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling 
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in. 
It has always been you. You are the first

person I was afraid to sleep next to,
not because of the fear you would leave 
in the night but because I didn’t want to wake up

ungracefully. In the morning, I crawled over 
your lumbering chest to wash my face and pinch 
my cheeks and lay myself out like a still-life

beside you. Your new girlfriend is pretty 
like the cover of a cookbook. I have said her name 
into the empty belly of my apartment. Forgive me.

When I feel myself falling out of love with you, 
I turn the record of your laughter over, reposition 
the needle. I dust the dirty living room of your affection.

I have imagined our children. Forgive me. I made up 
the best parts of you. Forgive me. When you told me 
to look for you on my wedding day, to pause

on the alter for the sound of your voice 
before sinking myself into the pond of another 
love, forgive me. I mistook it for a promise.