Cold Warmth

By Amanda Addo

 

I read the morning paper, it tells me that 

you are my hot stove with a familiar burn seconds 

before my mind registers it's danger 

and perhaps the way you wouldn't abandon me 

the way I Stockholm syndrome in my relations with others.

 

The unfairness of life, how it’s weathered your body 

orange pill bottles remedying years of survival 

from mouth to hand, I am your worm

Seven years of day afters, missed birthdays,

‘She took her first steps today,’ 

she’ll say to you on the phone

and your absence, the only active participant 

 

I know the plane remembers you alone in a new land. 

Long nights, laying on the floor of hunger from empty 

pockets in the cold winters of ’07 and ’08. The church 

misses you. But you're held in purgatory for a better

 livin’ at the mercy of your Anglican lover and children. 

Your aversion to giving up is the Alma mater I wake up to 

and get a chance to live the life you never had. 

Now you’re older and so am I.