The first time you knew me, I was wearing a purple silk robe. To this day, you call it a kimono and think I'm so comfortably foreign. I was always yours, and yet never yours. Our futures were mapped out on the backs of our hands, and we watched our freckles trek highways up our shoulders and down our spines, collecting like pools of sweat, the kind that I missed the night I sent you back to your friends. I let you go, and still clung to you. I was a shirt you pulled from the dryer too soon. Your skin held me close, and let me dry, leaving an itchy tight patch on you. I am sorry for never scratching that itch until your skin bled. I should've let my nails dig in until your nerves were dead to my touch, until you couldn't feel anything. Then you would slowly scrape your scabs up, noting the change in shape and texture, until they formed circuits. They would shoot like bamboo up your veins and reconnect your brain to your skin and leave behind no trace of me. You always deserved better.