I mistakenly believed you had shattered my heart
When you slashed through the six strings of my acoustic
While I plucked a tune to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,”
The song to which we first clashed carts
At our neighborhood supermarket shopping for lettuce.

Two weeks were followed by maniacal episodes:

You came home after walking our Lab
And poked your head into the doorway
And hesitantly greeted me hello.
My eyes protruded at yours glaringly.
Faster than a huntsman cocks his rifle,
My arm mechanically jutted out towards the dresser
And gripped the ceramic vase your mother gave me
And chucked it towards the left side of the entrance.
You took that as a signal to go away.

When you went golfing with your old buddies from the U,
I invited the super over to the house
And had each lock newly refined.
On that Sunday evening when you came home
And inserted your mangy key into the door,
It wouldn’t budge.
And I heard your insistent knocking and your phone calls
While packing my suitcases tightly and leaving food for the Lab
Just in case you were to forget again.

I crouched down to the ground to zip up my suitcase
And the dog planted his chin on my knee
And I was rubbing his ears and stroking his nose
When I saw the few hairs off your head
Escalating up the fire escape.

Your nonplussed expression bewildered me
And I remembered I can’t play the guitar.