my hair is always a mess.

strand after strand falls to my eyes
blurring my vision
creating gaps in my reality
so i push them away

i need to focus

i.must. focus.

my hands graze the bookshelf
****. sorry. your bookshelf. our bookshelf.
all ten of my fingers
simultaneously feeling the surfaces
of each memory
and laugh
and kiss and argument and meal and dance and song
we ever shared

there were so many things
too many things

my mind starts to burn
because all i can see is you
strand after strand falls into my eyes
but its not my hair this time

strands of our lives
perfectly separated
once perfectly perpendicular
now perfectly parallel

and we all know
two parallel strands
headed in the same direction
will never meet
or cross
or even see each other again
despite their distance
or location
mine, being here
yours, being a concrete marker with four deep black words describing every fiber of your being

its not fair
that our lives came in wholes
in perfect, put together objects
and that time just increases the space between its atoms
creating strands and strings and broken things
ones that were once alls

and its not fair
that, when trying to turn our bits into something new
trying and failing and trying again
to make them fit against someone else's
that yours were taken
leaving me with strands untied
and spaces unfilled
and parts that just want to be wholes again.

my mind starts to cool.
stand up.
for a second time, i place my hand on the bookshelf. your shelf. our shelf.
and i let the strands fall.
i let them fill my eyes
and enter my ears
and wiggle around into my brain
because
if anything
every strand of yours i managed to keep

i insist should be mine as well.