You moved away so long ago. Texas was too stifling, it’d have killed you. I offered you to come to California with me but you wouldn’t. Said you wouldn’t make it there, either. I can understand not wanting to go someplace where you consistently are in danger of yourself. Only thing I don’t understand is the one place you feel safe being all the way across the country.

The terror of not knowing these answers builds up inside of me to the point where it just becomes anger. To the point where I can no longer take the silence that has grown between us. I pick up my phone and call you, but of course you don’t fucking answer. So I leave a voicemail.

“Tell me, lover? Now that you’ve made your change, was your soul rediscovered? Was your heart rearranged? Are you still taking pills in the morning? And did you lose that longing, now, for a walk through an ocean town? ‘Cause this town’s just an ocean now…”

I shake my head and fight off the stinging behind my eyes.

“You don’t hate the summers — you’re just afraid of the space. Asking strangers for answers to forget what they say. A boat without a dock in the sunlight. Nothin’ but the water and the sunrise, now. Just the lack of an open mouth, ‘cause this town’s just an ocean, now.”

I wait. Maybe you’re going to call me back. No, of course you won’t.

“Bad, I miss this place, your head and your heart. My dad still tells me when they’re playing your songs. Laughing at the way that you would say ‘if only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights; they’d make me a star. They’d make me a star.”

I sob.

“I wanna go to Maine…”