was everything left unsaid.

You always were more whisper
than girl, so naturally you haunt me
most.
I put quarters in the washer
and suddenly they’re your pale,
freckled fingers counting 
pennies for the vending machine.
I tiptoe across the carpet and now
I’m in that echoey gym, ignoring
the arrogant trumpets and listening
to you lament your inability to march
heel-toe.
I call something egg-cellent
and the words land amid blank stares.
You would have said it before I could,
or perhaps passed me the mic.
You could always tell when I was about 
to crack a joke, said I smiled too early
and ruined the delivery.
Everything seemed so funny then.
Now I sit on park benches alone
and cannot seem to summon my humor.
Banished with you, I suppose.
You always did leave
without saying goodbye.
Your poetic justice, really,
a two-line poem I can’t even write 
because I habitually say too much.
Isn’t that why you’re gone?
 
What made you a better poet than me
You always did leave
without saying goodbye.