I'm starting to not remember how you looked.
But I remember little things,
like how you'd fold half the page to dogear
your place in a book.
The smell of old canvas
which you stretched when you were manic,
and watched it turn whiter
as you grew depressed thinking of how to paint it.

The grinding of your teeth in your sleep, ******* it
it drove me up the wall. Still does, because
as I sit here writing it from memory I shuddered.

The smell of your shampoo whose brand name I forgot.
Because if I could I'd have a case of it.
Just to be nearer to you.

You used to smile when I'd read you something I wrote.
Now I've found a website where I can post.
You always told me I had some type of talent to capture
moments nobody noticed,
a photographer with words instead of apertures.
But aren't they meant to be worth a thousand more than mine?
I think you held for me a little bias.

You told me I'd end up as a paragraph in an essay
of some American Literature student's midterm grade.
She'd ace it, and I loved where you placed me.
In the middle of everything better than I was,
in this future of whimsy where I kept writing
just because.

I can't tell you what you gave me for those years, as short as they were.
All I can do is tell other people that any confidence or talent is all due to her.