Things change, always. You wrote this in my yearbook. I stumbled upon it last week. In the heart of the fire is a cheap fool’s gold necklace. Hanging from the necklace is a charm that reads told you so. I wrote that in your yearbook. I rewrite our yearbook goodbyes on the inside of my forearm. Told you so. Things change, always.
It has been too long, and I am not really exploring the cavern of my memory just right anymore. Either way…
I imagine you taste like lavender and honey.
&
Every attractive person reminds me of you.
Doesn’t that suck? Or it will until it doesn’t. Or it will until every attractive person reminds of someone else. Or, until the novelty wears off.
I clean out my closet in the middle of my workday because I feel weighed down too much to think. Only, I’m still thinking about if I am letting go of the right things. I wonder if my coworkers will notice the distance I put between myself and reality.
There is a faint smell of charcoal and raspberries echoing through the hallway. It makes me think I live in a castle, and that instead of castles being lonely and foreign, they are a utopia full of love and comfort.
I know I won’t tell you anything anymore. Not in the way I want to. Not unless there is a drastic sign telling me that I can refocus my attentions away from myself again.
I look at my forearm.
I look at the clouds drifting in the same direction. Slow and effortless.
I look at my stomach. It flashes me a smile, like an acquaintance would.
I wonder if getting rid of my yearbook would be a horrendous mistake. In the same way I fight the idea of getting rid of you. As if the sensation of experiencing people can be an old t-shirt that hasn’t been worn for well over a year. And I hold it in my hands, trying to embody the feeling of letting it go. I can’t tell… I can’t tell if the decluttering will be right, until the emptiness presents itself.
Samantha Albala is a Boulder-tethered poet, gobbling up horizons and babbling about road trips, tea and anatomical hearts. See more writing at samanthaalbala.contently.com.
