there is a line for the bathroom

When I write,
I write to the women
in the bathroom
I will never meet.

I know them
only by their shoes,
and they know me
only as my feet.

Accustomed
to waiting,
to observing,
to hearing everything.

Solidarity
with the other
feet
behind closed doors.

Our ‘yous’ are
not alike, but
we find a similarity
in our Defeated Doc Martens

poking out as we
strive to balance
every memory of ‘you’
on the stall walls in sharpie.

Not writing
to ‘you’, but about
‘you’. Reducing
‘you’ down,

like a chef
in a kitchen
to the lingering
feelings.

I know ‘you’
by this
lingering.
How dare ‘you’

take up the space
‘you’ do there? How
dare ‘you’ leave this
behind for me?

imprisoned caddy-corner
from this closed door, with
all of this ephemera
‘you’ abandoned.

I’ve been trying to organize
everything, but ‘you’ have all
left too much
behind.

The urge to
crawl underneath
everything’s weight creeps up
quickly, and recedes

as swiftly as it came. And
I am sitting in exactly the same
wave that ‘you’ found me: in
it all.

I have piles
and stacks and boxes,
and they do not “bring me
joy”. ‘You’ no longer

“bring me joy”.
Because I only have
that ‘you’ left, and
what’s left,

and I know
we both intended
more, and I know
that neither of us

set out to leave this
behind, to get rid of it
when we started;
but here

I sit
behind
this
closed door.

I can’t bear
to throw them out
when I know
they were so good

at some point;
put it all in a box
in the basement
like yearly decor;

drag it out when
I feel you
creeping in with a
new season, coming up

with happiness and sunshine
and dread,
somehow making flowers
even with clouds.

This stall has
clouds, goddman does
it have clouds and shit
and secrets

that used to be ours
but now there’s
no ‘ours’ and when I write,
I write to the women

in the bathroom
I will never meet.
I know them
only by their startled noises

as the other shoe drops,
and they know me only
as a closed door
creating noise from

the careful endeavor
to arrange and rearrange
ever gathering
baggage efficiently.

What I can tell
you is I’m not the only
one zipping and unzipping
as I hide in this stall,

and that starts
to overtake
the loneliness of it all.
So open the

door, and let it all out.
Leave the baggage behind,
no longer pout; set it on
fire and watch

yourself be released
from hiding
and running and
finally Be Free.