"You dissect the sound of a symphony,
Like how you dissect the smoked ham sitting on your plate.

You know each instrument by name,
By key,
By sound.
Like how you know each voice,
By smile,
By laughter.

You know each instrument by its player,
How they play the notes,
Softly,
Loudly.
Like how you know each person who took your heart
And crushed it between their fingers of vines and thorns,
Sound,
Silence.

The way she says, “Hello” to you is so sweet but you know all too well
she doesn’t mean to put that sugar in the bowl of ingredients
Of how much she’s hurt you.
You know all too well about the candied scent that lingers
Around your nostrils like that one childhood smell you’ve long forgotten
Until you’ve gotten its smell then it’s gone.

Or about the way her shirt lies on your dark, bedroom floor,
Waiting to be worn and wrinkling with age,
Because it was never moved from the moment you peeled it from her body
Eager to kiss her soft, sunburnt, skin with your chapped, covered lips.

Or about the way she’d get so angry her face lit up
Like the street light on 7th and Elm
Where you and her shared the taste of originality of each other’s lips.
Oh how it hurts to remember the day,
You shared information about each other
On the edge of the sidewalk that lead it’s way to the front door of her house.
Information no one but she can know,
Like how you eat spaghetti,
Your darkest secret or fear,
The way you can’t sleep unless you have someone or something
In between your arms
And interlaced with your legs because you hate sleeping alone.
Maybe even the way you cry.

Time is a thief and a giver at the same time.
So make your time with her a long story short
Because time with her isn’t limitless,
It’s limited.
So you never know what happens in the time being
When you’ll lose her.

Make your long story short,
So you aren’t sold short."