Poems in Objects

Tonight I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. As I was building myself up to do it, I felt a sense of dread. I knew it would be difficult. I kept hoping that I was blowing it out of proportion, that it wouldn't be as difficult as it was, but I was kidding myself. My heart hurts and my stomach is turning and my hands are shaking, making it difficult to type. It's very fresh and images of us together keep entering my mind. It's hard to concentrate.

The taste inside my mouth is sour. I'm kinda hungry, but I can't really abide the thought of eating. I think I'll eat a cup of ramen before I go to bed, alone. For some reason, Ramen has become my comfort food. I guess getting back to being single before, I found some contentment in the simplicity of it. It was cheap and easy to make and actually, to my taste buds, tasted good. There was something liberating about the cheapness of the ramen that was all mine.

Kinda getting off subject, I know, but who's to say what's germaine to this ancient topic of loving and losing? Doesn't every tangent lead back to love? Doesn't every fear come from love and every love cause some sort of fear?

As he was leaving, I picked up an envelope with his name on it. It's his tip envelope from work. Someone, probably the receptionist, Amanda, had spelled his name "Jon," then, possibly realizing the mistake, put in a "^" with an "h." Or maybe it was always a joke. I don't know. But I'd seen the envelope a couple times in the last few days and never noticed that. It's something I would've mentioned to him. We would have both laughed about it. Laughter was what really cemented our attraction to one another in the first place. I remember on our first date sitting in the restaurant, Spring, laughing my ass off and thinking to myself "I haven't laughed this hard in sooo long."

So, as I picked up this envelope, had my little moment, I thought to myself, "this is going into the box. This is what tonight is." See, I keep a box of mementos. I keep a new one for every year. Historic days, both on macro and micro levels, I pick something up and put it in this box. Sometimes I hate myself for turning moments into objects. Am I compartmentalizing my feelings by transforming them into something I can put in a box? Am I celebrating life as much as I like to think I am? I don't know. Sometimes I think it's reductive, a travesty. To keep things in perspective, I have to say that I never think these things when I'm looking in one of my old boxes. I only look on these objects with reverence and fondness. My memory is so poor that I don't know of any better way to hold on to my dearest moments. And I have to say that he can never be reduced to a moment or a scrap of paper. This I know.

But yeah, it was hard, tonight. It was hard because nothing was truly wrong. I was not angry. I was not in love with someone else. I couldn't fault him if I tried. He's a wonderful man and I know I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss our moments of intimacy that will never be replicated. I'm going to miss his silliness. I'm even going to miss his fake smoking and his slow clapping at every single thing I'd say. I'm going to miss the way he talks to my dog. The way Racecar gets excited when John comes home from work. I'm going to miss his Flemal Sandwiches and his cooking in general. Suddenly Ramen doesn't sound as good. But I know it will fulfill me - at least enough to get to sleep.

I'm pretty certain he's going to read this at some point, and that's very hard for me. Certainly harder for him. I'll continue to love him for a long time, but things just weren't right. Just as he does, I sometimes wonder if they ever will be. All along he had a fear that I was going to leave him. All along I feared that I would leave him, too. There were moments that I thought he knew, even wanted this to happen. I really did. Turns out I was wrong. I hope I wasn't wrong, too, about ending it in the first place. Will I ever know?