“I buy all your favorite foods so I will be ready when you come home because once I did this and you said “This is how I know you love me.” I go on long walks alone and think about a poem my friend wrote that goes “This is how you die by distance.” I hum the sound of the dial tone under my breath. I stare at my hands and wonder at their uses. I consider pawning my thighs. I consider auctioning off my hip bones. I put my breasts in a box on the top shelf of the closet. I do not need them now. I think of all the thing I have to tell you when I will see you. Stories like: I just found out pumpkins are technically fruits and Cary Grant’s first job was in a traveling circus and Most mammals are born able to walk and learn to run within minutes, so we are not crazy for moving so fast. This morning I wrote your name in the steam on my mirror, even though I knew it would fade within minutes. In my best notebook I wrote “I miss you” ten thousand times. I wrote “I think I am missing one of my ribs” I wrote “I envy the way leaves know exactly when to fall from the branches and when to come back in the spring” I wrote “Everyone else isn’t you. It turns out that’s a huge problem for me.””
— Clementine von Radics, Things I Do When I Cannot Hold You
