i am saving words. i find them in dusty corners, old words piling up over the years, and i collect them in my hands. i look under books i wore from use, between scribbled annotations in their pages. in my journal i find words i thought about a lot, and sometimes, i find words in the spaces that i thought about too much. i search in the bathroom sink, where they get caught in the drain, and i work up a sweat to pull them out. i search in places i used to go just to remember again, i am saving those words. some of them i meant for my friends. a few look like they were for people a bit closer than friends. most of them are for myself, and i am saving those words for myself. i am saving them to remember the life i've lived thus far.
i dug up those words i wrote for you so long ago. i put them in a vase and set them on my desk.