When I walked into the kitchen this morning

you were perched on a stool,

sipping water from a highball glass.

I whispered good morning and vanished to the bathroom

where I wept before the mirror,

cold elbows planted on the porcelain sink.

I keep replaying that image of you in my mind

and each time I imagine you as a candy apple 

bobbing along the lonesome waves 

of some big black ocean. That was the first time

you felt foreign to me—  no longer an extension

of my own flesh or the lead 

in my carefully curated fairytale. 

You never used to drink water.

It was always Strawberry Nesquick through a dreaded plastic straw

or gulps of seltzer straight from the bottle. 

I used to scold you and you would laugh

and clutch my waist in a perfectly lopsided embrace. 

In my memory you are the one who refuses to let go,

but today I learned that I am the one holding on.

It is as if purpose itself lies between my fingers

and your back.