You don't say.

There’s a story within the story.  

You tell me the news a week later.  

Funnily, you're telling me the news  

so I'll be ready when you are—  

                      ready to talk about it. 

And I'm not sure when, but it's not now.

     But I "should be prepared."

As if you aren't talking about it now.

The live-in boyfriend of how many years?  

Whom I've never met. Not once.  

Treatment for PTSD.  He can’t talk to you 

for the first month?  Incredulous, 

I ask how you feel—  

emotion list, each one a new flavor.  

I don’t blame you.  

And his dad moved out,  

at boyfriend’s request.  

You don’t say why.

                    And I don't ask.

Instead I ask if I can send a Starbucks card.  

No, you say, there’s none in your town.  

         Walmart? Subway?  

No, you say, you're fine financially.  

And then you ask for dog pics.  

But it’s not about money.  

Let me send something!

Because I can’t be there. I can’t help.  

I can’t lay my eyes on you  

and know you're safe even

if only for those minutes I can see you.  

I can’t shake the feeling  

there’s a story within the story  

you don’t say.

So I buy $60 of healthy snacks,  

send them anyway. By Tuesday.  

See, if I didn’t care,  

                      if I didn’t love you,  

I’d be as dismissive as a customer  

caught in a grocery store clerk’s confession,  

saying, “Wow, you don’t say,”  just to get away.

Never mind that 14 years ago it was me calling you.

But, 

      That's a different story within the story.