i worked endlessly to extract the pieces of you from my brain,
silently sawed my skull open as i slept and plucked each
memory of us moving towards forever together with the
tweezers you left behind from that time you got a splinter and i
held you tenderly as i removed tree matter from your skin

that's one of the first ones that came back, followed by us
riding our bikes to the beach to drink beers and celebrate one year
even though the storm was coming and we only had that one old
ratty towel, i photographed you there and often looked at that image
of you after alcohol ruined us both and turned you into someone without
eyes that were smiling and skin no longer tender from being punctured with ink

i hid in that image of you, bronzed and perfect, content and looking
ahead to following me across the country to become a permanent
fixture in the family unit we had created over 3,000 miles away from
the one i was trying to escape, you were the one who reminded me
that there never really was escape, only ignorance, and i laughed at you,
wondering why you would damper our dreams with what i considered sadness

now the tears surround me, a curtain to the outside world that soaks
me in all i had worked so hard to lose, all i had refused to look in the eye,
all i had thought left me the moment i left you, but in all of my forgetting i had lost
sight of the understanding that pain doesn't fade that way, only tucks itself away
silently and patiently waiting for the relaxation, the lack of resistance, the remembrance