We are who we are and time, it doesn’t change us. You would think me funny if you knew about the secret rituals I had before sleep or the tiny pinholes in my heart, god my heart, that grow bigger and bigger with time but won’t change me.
Can’t change me.
Last night before falling, I thought about the length of your fingernails, how many chairs there were at the dining room table, the feel of the bricks outside against my palms, what time you would usually go to sleep, the tips of your hair, the latch on the gate that led into the roses, the roses, the shed on the side of your house that used to terrify me, the color of the carpet in the garage, where you kept the toilet paper, how you pronounced your “s’” and your “r’s”, where your tongue sat when you slept, maybe in the back of your throat or maybe right up against your teeth (like me), and the sister you had that died at birth, and her name, and your parent’s names, and your children’s children’s names and your real life proximity to me when it was a real life.
Me and you, that’s what I like to think about.
But that’s when the holes start getting bigger. And I can feel them, sometimes relieved that I can feel and breathe and move and think and love and cry and hurt. The other day when someone asked me if you’d approve of something, I had no idea what to say back because they applied this here now to this there then and I felt like a little kid, like when I bite the insides of my cheeks as I think, and I just stared blankly.
Oh how we can force things to exist if we want them badly enough. Please do not get discouraged because I want you badly enough but I can’t bend time or dig graves or go back back back. Sometimes I keep myself up at night thinking of all of those small things I would change though. What small things they must have been to cause bigger things, like small holes that make big holes and small steps that finally end somewhere but I don’t want to end here. Not here. Thinking, some sort of unhappiness somewhere in my belly, not fighting! Not remembering but not forgetting. Instead thinking every night about my secrets and how many coat hooks were drilled into the wall and when did you take those down? And what was in the closet in-between the living room and the kitchen? And which switch turned on the fan (that also terrified me) in the hallway? And what year were you born? And will these details ever change me or am I still fighting time? Am I still losing?