This is not an invented ending.

As I left in December, I called that ending invented. I cleaned, packed, swept, listened to Michael Bublé when I should have listened to someone melancholy. I was leaving, you were leaving, but we were not really leaving. The year was ending, but the year was not really ending. In any case, you found me before the end end. You chided me gently for not saying goodbye. You had noticed that acidity, too.

This ending - this ending is not invented. Sitting quietly, straddling the end of April and the beginning of May, my wakefulness smearing the thin lines of calendars designating invented endings. Blue pen ink marks separating 2009 from 2010, April 30th from May 1st. This is not the end of a year, not the end of a season. Still, can you taste the acidity?

You're leaving and you're not coming back. You are this place. You are waiting around every corner - long, fast strides, ambitious strides, like mine. I will not be able to tell you to relax. I will not be able to remind you of how delicious the day is. I don't know how to be here knowing you are not here. Will I double-take, catch my breath, see your smile in the cream cotton dress you loved and in frozen yogurt and in cake mixes and in poker games? You are this place.

This time, the acidity comes in everything: orange juice, midnight popcorn, Aquafina water. I feel it in my throat and in my esophagus. Still you say nothing.

This ending is not an invented ending, but this ending is a forced ending. Abrupt slash here's your change. In three years, perhaps, you will not even remember me. Will you leave this place, finally, when I leave? Will that be the end?