(I sometimes shake my memories
when they find themselves twisted
& highly vivid)*

this way—
no that;
I want to remember the way
your hair felt entwined in my hungry fingers—

you were sitting there beneath the tree under which I had grown for nearly 1500 days,
but you had taught me more than all of those years
in just two fortnights’ time.

I remember how chilled your face felt—
how the evening looked so good on you
(you always had such sad eyes, you know,
& the moonlight fed them in ways you never realized you hungered for).
I was there for a day or so,
just enough for me to trip (& fall),
just enough for you to push me over the edge.

I don’t quite know what brought us there that night,
halfway between you wanting to go home
& me never wanting to leave your side,
but I held my hand on your face, in your hair,
waiting with all certainty that you would wrap your arms around my waist,
drawing me in to let me
breathe you in.

(how sad I was to have such faith,
& how sad you were to have none at all.)

these days, you’ve cut your hair
(perhaps the memories of my lingering fingers weighed you down,
a blanket too warm for the season),
& I don’t even recognize your casual howareyous
(the ones that used to keep me up at night & early into the Texas sunrises;
do you remember those, too?).
no—
instead I see them for what they are:
casual.

so as I lay here in lace & nostalgia,
in the very place we once whispered our desires to each other,
& my hands so heavy with all the things I’ve gathered for our next conversation,
I will instead empty my palms, and,
like you,
release what burdens so heavily.