Untethering

I shed years of things collected
under pretence of permanence

and it’s been	four years at least
but there you are at the café

a shared blink	your name	
barely at my lips

                            and I watch you walk away
                            like I never got to before. 
		
	
The airs around me are shifting
a strange   time-filled chasm awaits:

 


I rip page after page from binders 
of years-old course notes
 
                                              watch them fall 
                                              into ashes	
realise
            that the weight of staying amounts to more.

This place gathers unclaimed pieces 
of me			and my resistance

has led to unclipped toenails taking root 
in the boards downstairs		and dust 
enmeshes		into another new scarf

                                   if only I wasn’t allergic.