she asks at the end of our session and I think of nothing. I mean, I cannot think. My hair stroked gently after throwing up,

a handwritten note reading Be back later. I say it tastes like a flower I can’t name.

 i keep remembering in numbers. how many times you lied to me. through your gorgeous teeth. through your coffee stained teeth. nicotine teeth. breathing heavy. i keep remembering in losses. how much loss can i hold in the palm of hand. what if this happens. if i lose more. how much more can i lose. i wonder. i wonder about loss. i forget in phrases. the first words you spoke to me. on your porch. i was in a sweatshirt. it was hot but i was nervous so i was in a sweatshirt. you were smoking. you were hungover. you were covered in glitter. you had just come from her house. you told me this later. you never told me this. i heard it from somebody else. i wonder how much longer it will take until it all comes back in one go. you havent thought about it weeks. probably months.  you travel to another state and i stay awake and drift through time.

39 weeks ago i left my old apartment and walked into town. i told my ex partner at the time i was meeting friends. i never told him about you. i sat in a coffee shop and tried to write. you texted me. you told me you needed more time to wake up. you went from her house to your house and i met you at your house. we fucked that day. for the first time we fucked that day. you kissed my elbows. i kissed your neck. it wasnt anything like anything i had done before. i loved you forever in that split second. i still remember that feeling. its gone out of me now but i still remember it. you laughed at my jokes. you walked with me into town after. i smelled like sex. i knew that. you laughed at me. you said “see you in the future” and i wanted to tell you then but i didnt. i never told you until later. and even then. i never told you. i went to a coffee shop and met him for coffee. i smelled like sex. the waitress flirted with me. i kept thinking in my head she knew. she must have known. a grin the size of texas stretching my face apart. she must have known. 

39 weeks ago i was 160 pounds at 5′3. i wasnt happy. i met you. you made me happy. you shoved it into my hands and said take it. i did. i took it. i liked it. you lied to me. you kept lying to me. you never stopped. 

28 weeks ago you stopped trying. you told me it wasnt my fault. you told me a lot of things. you told me it was her. you told me it wasnt her. you made me breakfast. you fucked me. you told me it was going to be fine. 

26 weeks ago we met in the graveyard. we met in the graveyard and you wore your sunglasses and i smoked a cigarette. you fed me bullshit. i cried.  you didnt. you never did. we walked through the gravestones and didnt hold hands. i wanted to be as close to you as i could without touching you. so i didnt touch you. 

16 weeks ago you sat with me in a mexican restaurant and we got drunk on cheap margaritas. you told me things that you knew would make me want you again. you lied again. you always lied. you knew how to lie so well it sounded better then the truth. it sounded like a promise. 

we drank too much. we walked home drunk. we stood on the corner of your street and we talked. we smoked half a pack. we softly whispered. you took me back to your house even though we knew what was waiting for us there. you kissed me to a big thief song. you kissed me to the album. you held my hair and my hands. you wrapped yourself around me all night. i knew you loved me then. i knew it as clearly as if you had said it. i knew you loved me and i loved you and it was the last night of august. you made me coffee in the morning like you used to do. we sat in your living room. i met your landlord. he shook my hand. i laughed at your jokes. i walked home feeling heavy. 

you stopped talking to me then. stopped trying again. you got bored. you always got bored. i never was. 

2 weeks ago you liked a photo i posted on instagram. but you haven’t texted me in over 5 weeks. 

i am 135 pounds at 5′3 and i am happy. 39 weeks ago you made me happy. you never will again. 

in numbers it makes sense. time passes. feelings fade. people move on. change addresses. lose friends. gain weight. shift. move. change. 

this is the big project i have been working on for a year and a half. this is my lovechild. this is my everything. 

listen. 

i love you.

xoxo

Nonfiction

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy by Elizabeth Winder

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath by Diane Middlebrook

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Fiction

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Emma by Jane Austen

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Macbeth by Shakespeare

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Poetry

Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Another Time by W.H. Auden

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

Graphic Novels/Comics

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenburg