Back to You
In certain moments, on certain days, I smell you. There is a whiff of mowed grass in the air, or a a hint of Old Spice deodorant, and I am suddenly remembering you, always with my eyes closed and my back slumped like a question mark, wondering when you’ll be erased.
When anyone mentions “the people” we never leave behind, I think of you.
My house is on top of a hill, and when the sliding doors are opened on summer days I can hear the ticking of the electric metronome that the marching band of the local high school uses. We both graduated there. We both played in the band. You were a year ahead of me, but you said it never felt that way. The night I got my diploma was the last day I saw you. You promised we’d get breakfast the morning after, so I called you fourteen times when I woke up.
I got your voicemail. Every time I heard your automated voice I realized that I’d done this before. I kept going. By the fifth time, older memories resurfaced. Eighth, and the memories multiplied tenfold. Twelfth, and I was angry. Fourteenth, and I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know what to do.
Now, you’re probably three states away, living in a room that’s barely furnished, ashtrays on the table, the bed a mess. With someone else, with different emotions and a muted understanding of what we may have, should have, had. You probably smell the same. Everything else has changed. Now I memorize the scent of someone else, run my lips on the slopes of a different neck, fold myself into a different body’s shape, sing songs that someone else likes. Now I know what to do.
