Maybe
if I can capture you on paper,
I can keep you.

You see,
I had hoped for the memory of you
to fade with my summer tan
but now I find myself greedy,
indulging in thoughts of you like a child sneaking chocolates.

I am thinking of you
sitting with me on a lumpy twin bed,
and wanting so badly to memorize you.
I asked if your hair was course or fine.
You let me run my fingers deeply through it
and there was an aching and a hollowness in me,
knowing your palate preferred a more balanced plate.

I never had you.
But I did, didn't I?
Just for a paragraph, but that's alright
because it belongs to me.
Iis mine to take out and taste in spoonfuls
or in buckets, or to stifle in a wooden box,
but it will always seep through the tiny fractures
and spill onto the page
because
that is the power of memory and words.