When you told me you were leaving
I had practiced the path of which my
fingers memorized the curvature of your spine
and your ribcage.
That way your memory would forever be in my fingerprints

The week before you left. I watched you
carefully,
And then all at once as you threw
yourself against the wind.
The way you tried to absorb into the clouds above you.
You just wanted to go home.

As much as I wished, you would never call my arms home
Instead they were a nose that was ever tightening against your pale skin
Too tight but too loose.
I just wanted to love you.

5 days before you left.
You told me we were better off without each other.
That I was merely a past memory.
The nights we spent limbs oustretched and entangled meant nothing.

But you wrote me my first love letter.

Slipped under my dorm room door
Softly like a midmorning whisper or a kiss goodnight
Just fast enough to be seen by a fleeting eye or felt by a barefoot
You told me you had no idea we would turn out like this.

3 days before you left.
I laid awake in both disbelif and awe that someone who was once so close
Could stop and then suddenly restart my heart again and again
until finally it lulled itself back into a chaotic slumber.

The day you left
I refused to watch you leave from the rearview mirror
Everyone knows you only look through that mirror if you want to watch something dissapear.

My blind spot was way to thick
And my tears were traces of past memories that were yet to be written
I was too selfish to even aknowledge the simplicity of a goodbye

But you wrote my my first love letter.