Time is a Circle and Love is a Parabola

All the pens in the house
slow down
because I am stopping time. I watch my face crawl out of a hole
made from a cluster of lines.

I time travel and see a capital V and know
he is writing my name on the internet again.
I know he’s including my last name
because using my last name in break-up stories
is a writing crutch. He is lucky
someone with such a poetic name dumped him.
I wait until I am sure. I wait to see the capital L before
I leave.

I am using crutches too
but the literal type because I keep forgetting to bring my whole body
back with me every time I leave someone. I don’t know
if I feel worse
that I lost half my DVD collection or left my left hand
at his place. Don’t worry!

My right hand is my most dominating hand. 

It is the hand that writes when and where
I want to go on a screen and the machine does the rest.

It is the hand
that instead of just turning off the light switch, it shuts down
the whole power grid.

I kept moving
to another place and to another time
until he wasn’t drawing or writing or thinking about me
at all.


Valerie Loveland

Valerie Loveland keeps scolding her husband for revealing they are time travelers. Her email is valerieloveland@gmail.com

Art by Briget Heidmous: https://www.briget-heidmous.com/