Leftovers

Nothing is more depressing than separating two collections of DVDs. I couldn’t remember if I owned Anchorman or he did. So I took it. I also took a couple of things I know I didn’t own, but he won’t miss. I felt a little guilty until I looked at the dog. He gets to core out my heart, pack it up with leashes and dog toys… and me? I get the extended edition of the Fellowship of the Ring and the second season of Arrested Development. If this is a contest I am already losing. 

She pees on the bed now. Her life is turning upside down and the best thing she can think of to do is piss all over the sheets? If you’re looking for more three-way cuddles, Riley, you are going about it the wrong way.

I never thought it would be hard. I never do. I underestimate the extent to which men worm their ways into my life. It’s time to pack up and move on but they’ve let termites into the woodwork. My foundations are compromised. I feel like I have to cut away little pieces of me every time I leave someone. They are not just song and movie preferences anymore. Now, they have graduated to living creatures and entire qualities I used to love about myself. How can I purposefully emphasize the “ing” when pronouncing words anymore? With his voice echoing in the back of my head, laughing. How can I allow myself to sing randomly about the things I am doing if when I catch myself it will only remind me of that day in my kitchen when he interrupted me by singing along in an off-key duet. How can I identify with nicknames that he coined?

I know it’s not supposed to be easy but I never knew it would be exponentially harder the older I get. I can’t just turn off the radio anymore and with it silence the memories. They are inside me now; they are part of my skeleton and I can’t get free without hacking off the limbs. What is going to be leftover this time? Will it be recognizable?

Bruce Springsteen – Secret Garden

Rainy Days and Libraries

In my fantasy he will find me between the fiction stacks in a library shaking the rain from his hair with laughing eyes and a lopsided grin. He will make me feel instantly at ease, not as if I am auditioning for a role and preparing to dive into the spotlight. He will be tall. Which is odd, because I don’t date tall men. But, he will be. I will have to look up for once. I will like looking up, for once.

I imagine him piling stacks of books in my arms: classics and barely-knowns and graphic novels and bestsellers and comedies and tragedies and then looking at me for reassurance, like “you don’t think this is crazy, do you?” And I will shake my head, speechless. And he will cup my cheeks in these two strong hands and he will kiss me kiss me kiss me until there is nothing left.

And I will know that it was worth it, all of this, to get there. To be in that anonymous library with that dark stranger, my arms filled with books, kissing like I have been starving for him. While outside raindrops explode against the pavement.