Three books about love or trauma or love and trauma.
One hopeless movie we won’t be viewing . At least never together.
You were too far away anyways. In all ways, I guess.
Stacks of music mixed with ulterior motives and biased intentions. Disks injected with feelings we had wished were true.
Secrets I never really showed you and moments from those journeys that were better left untaken.
Pictures I’d sketched backwards and brokenly, not knowing the subject from complex physics.
My love was backward and haphazardly forced in a similar way. Hindsight can only fix one broken chain, so I etch away at the tangible and forget the other.
Cuff links. And I can’t pretend to know their worth… other than a man with ambition should own a pair.
And aren’t you the conqueror of all shiny things?
A shirt emblazoned with the name I’d have traded to play for your team. You couldn’t wait for me though, so I guess it is all the same.
(It is like you soaked it in your scent just to torture me.)
Your half of the friendship bracelet I made on a two-day trip on the coldest train in August. I suppose it fits that mine didn’t make it back to me.
A pair of sunglasses entirely too large for my face. I wore them for a full year to cover signs of emptiness that only you could leave me with.
(At least it was a thoughtful gift.)
And then, just a few intimates.
Our excuses.
Our relationship.
Neatly coiled together. Mingled in a way we never were. Cowering in the corner of a non-descript box that shows how little we had.
Panties that I either left or you took. But I’m better than the left me and they look damn good on me. So I put them on and uncoil a mismatching tie. I think,
I remember sleeping with this all those nights I couldn’t make it to Massachusetts.
I slide a pink ribbon through my fingers and think about a poem you wrote about intimacy and honesty.
I try to form stitches from these random scraps that will contain my candidness.
