As Dull and Sharp as a Phone Call

A call from you is like oxygen all over again
Yet the result of exhalation seeps between my thoughts
Hearing the familiar and foreign lilt of your voice
Triggers a rush and release of rekindled blood
That swells from precious memories etched behind my eyelids
I am so quick to feel the smiling nostalgia
A momet like shopping with my mother
Fresh fruit and laughter that
Peels from the skin of childhood
As everything fades away and
The water sprays suddenly

One, one thousand.
Something changes.

Your words aren’t coherently familiar anymore
They are divided by the cadence of my palpitating lungs
My throat catches in accordance with yours
And clarity is born, a twin to devastation
Bloodless, smooth, and blank as white
You leave abruptly, unable to fix yourself, let alone me
The vacancy of your voice is suffocating
And it’s now that I wonder
Who could ever find irony
In such an oxymoronic juxtaposition?