I bet you think I loved you for a minute. I wonder, in time, if youll see they were sixty seconds, and I keep rewinding, living them forever, frame by frame.

pausing at the stills of my mistakes, wishing them different. but the reel has run, the theater emptied, and I sit through the credits with the static, alone. lonely.

vignettes of “what ifs” fly in my head. I stare at your fingers, theyre how I remember them. chubby. Id call them that just to watch your nose scrunch. I loved them though, or I thought I would?

do you know what I miss? the fights. we were never in time, you and I, two songs playing over each other, mine slow, in minor, mourning something it hadnt lost yet, yours warm and major, swaying easy, sure of the sun. but mid-quarrel, you were unmistakably you. the curtain slipped, the script forgot its lines, and for one held breath, I stood in the room with the real you.

theres a version of us where I learn your hair, fumble the scrunchie, youtube the braid, walk you down my cheap little grocery aisles. small lives. I built hundreds of them. its easier to live them inside me than to watch you live them out there, with someone else.

I still owe you flowers, by the way. and bangles. I keep the debt like a keepsake, the last contract left between us, and I pay the interest in poems.

I ruminated for months on what to say. a witty poem about coming of age? a long lengthy letter, draining the hearts thoughts? but what I sent came out gaspingly dry, because in time, I felt that maybe you didnt care. I inked it anyway.

a fool once inked it in a letter, love is grief. he thought he was being clever. he swore a better word would come, in time. only the grief kept its promise.

my brain and my heart have muddled their borders. I burnt myself to the ground loving you, and standing in the ashes, I did the math: what came back was never a tenth of what I sent. so I called it quits, and called it “choosing me”. it burns anyway. and to reach for you now would only burn you twice. I cant have that. so I mail these words from far, far away, hoping, maybe, youll notice. maybe...just?