My salad turned into me just eating bits of gouda covered in balsamic vinegar.

The earth spins and the moon goes round

The green comes from the frozen ground

and everything will be made new again

like freedom in spring.

I love watching things become smoothed and numbed by time. Or rather, I love noticing this; I suppose I shouldn’t stand around and wait for it to happen. It’s like watching grass grow or paint dry or water boil. Don’t just stand there but come back in a while and hey, the lawn needs mowing and that colour looks nice and now we can have tea. 

Over time, these things soften. Emotions fall away from events like peeling bark on an old tree. Like bits of sand in an oyster’s defenseless flesh, those hard, bitter edges become encased in foggy memory. 

We go out for coffee. I ran a half marathon in October, I say. I am proud of this and somehow I want you to know about my life, still. Congratulations, you say. It is only months later as I’m running again that I remember that it was you who gave me those stupid shoes. But this is not important. You and the shoes have been peeled apart. 

My most-listened to song is from your mix CD. I haven’t forgotten this, but now it’s just a song, and your face and the frayed edges of emotion have been trimmed down and sanded away.

I wear the beads of the past like a garland, each song and gift and word a pearl to be exclaimed over and loved for itself. Like filmy scars, the pain of their acquisition is forgotten and only a good story remains. I bashed my head open. Twelve stitches, can you believe it? And then we laugh, as if twelve stitches are nothing and maybe you’re even a little jealous that you only had five that one time. 

Some things I keep hidden, though. That frame will never hold anything but your picture, although I don’t dwell on this. In a way, the sharp pangs of remembrance when these hidden things see the light are jewels themselves.

I won’t ever forget you, but you have become a simple pearl of memory - nothing more, nothing less. 

today I am wandering around in sweatpants and absent-mindedly eating things. 

perspectiveacles:

anotheractivist replied to your post: Oh boy.

Is your head currently located over your heels?

It’s spring. Isn’t everyone’s?

Just give me a bicycle and a tailwind and I’ll be happy.

Aisle hike hue.