Too Much to Remember

Something random I wrote, maybe the beginning to a story. Maybe the end. I don't know what it is.

I watched her books disappear over weeks… the words bound shrinking just like those between us. I had done nothing wrong, she said. But I knew better. I knew that if I had done nothing wrong, she wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t have already left me. Here we go.

Before I fall asleep, I can still feel her breathing down my neck, her softness bringing me to life when I least wanted it. I never took advantage of these kinds of things.

Is this not the greatest tragedy?

I didn’t mean to fall apart, of course. But it’s wedged between us, something like air but more beautiful, something like water but heavier. All I can feel is my heart breaking again and again and again and again and again here we go, I say instead: I still have our box. I can’t help it. I can’t throw her away. I can’t give her to goodwill or forget worn jeans or mermaid hair. I didn’t know how to keep her and so she was gone. If I believed in God, I would have prayed to Him. Who the hell knows, maybe I did. I can’t remember anything except trying not to cry, trying to hold myself away from her, when all I wanted was to feel the soft animal of her body falling against mine, make me somebody. She was the only one….