Two years after the split, I realize: there will be no new memories.

Now that pain has faded, I find myself protecting the good ones. Taking them out of their boxes and polishing them. Like well-loved shoes no longer in production.

Your favorites will be different from mine. Different holidays, different special nights. That are solely ours and will only ever be. (Not even thе home surveillance on your street can touch thеse.)

Sometimes I think morbid little thoughts, like

“One day one of us
will wake to news that
the other has died”

and we might feel shock—or total surprise. We might tell a spouse and conceal our sadness witha casual tone used for tales of blandness.

I wish our end were different, all lovers wish the same. But as I departed pain you entered it like a t r a i n and encountered a station you’d avoided your whole life.

In the end we found our ways

We both built something new.

Am I allowed to still think of you?


Or should I ask

you to depart
my heart

so it can be reclaimed

and new memories can be made