The lists I make

Most of life is a laundry list of things I want to tell you:

The plot of the book I am reading you said you were interested in and how it gets me like no one else.

What it’s like to love someone that is not you.

The feeling of being flooded by my youngest’s handwritten love notes.

The taste of the cacao and the peanut butter from the drink you said you wanted, I drink it everyday from the place you almost made me pee my pants at.

I nearly burst into tears at the preciousness of this man walking by my car, telling someone behind him in the parking lot, “Thank you it’s OK and I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” He walks with a slight limp and keeps his head up, facing the sky smiling as if he has seen some shit, while his heart stays soft.

The film I saw alone the other night, how I burned to talk at you for at least fifteen minutes straight about it as ‘uze.

All of these mental notes. Exhausting keep track of things we thought we might do. I am a lost train a bit tired of clinging to all of these sticky notes stuck to my body with endless songs, films, places, I want to breathe in, with you. They sway in the wind as I barrel through.

Maybe one of these lists will float through the sky and stick to you. Maybe one day I will be the person you have such big plans for. That is something I say but I never let myself believe. Like Christians who smile pathetically and say, “Thoughts and prayers.”

Instead of hope, I marvel at what my life is. How silly I can be. How my eating changed when I fully accepted you are gone. It’s funny how it becomes hard to chew. I just consume, for the sensual slow devouring is too much to bear. I’d rather not feel that please.

I’d rather not feel that gentle devouring at all.

Never in a million years would I let you feel that loving you was not the easiest thing in the world to do. For it was. If you were moving to Alaska, I’d figure out a travel schedule and buy the thickest coat. If you lost your arms, I would have fed you, whatever you want. It is stupid (and old) how strong the love becomes, despite the years between us now. Whatever box you put me in to survive without me, I guess that is none of my business.