Ghazal for the Loss of a Housemate

 
The August you left me, I carved my initials near the carpet. Our carpet. Or what was
supposed to be ours. The paint crumbled, the flakes a message for what was already gone

I spent my sweltering days walking on the bridge near the park where we once drank crisp
apple wine, where we broke a Willie Nelson CD, convinced our struggles were already gone.

When I came to college, you were the first person to pull me to the middle of a kitchen,
turn off all the lights, dance with your wrists flicked out, a butterfly shedding, already gone.

We called each other “Mom” because we felt safe. You would run to me, your face
flushed from winter wind, whatever you were going to tell me lost in your grin, already gone.

You once told me your thighs were “Army Strong”, and you taught me how to love
myself, how to love my body, how to let go of parts of me that were already gone.

Our names are similar. I still feel your first syllable on my own. Casey. The other day
I gave you mail sent to my house. You stared past me in the rain. I was a ghost already. Gone.