She Can Hover And Hurt Or Dissolve To Dirt, Some Prayer In Your Mouth.

I don’t think about you that often anymore. It’s funny because of how enamored I was with you for so long, how much I felt I owed you, and how I genuinely believed severing ties with you was the hardest thing I would ever have to do. It ends up that cutting you out of my life was just the training wheels preparing me for the hardships of being an “adult” and the heartaches that came along with growing up. Now, there’s nothing left of you except some songs I don’t listen to, your shirts in my suitcase, and a few strained memories that wander into my brain so infrequently that I’m shocked to remember I once thought I might love you.

When I think about you, I don’t remember how excited I audibly was when I called my best friend and told her that you’d just kissed me, so unexpected and tender, in the lobby of some venue in Chicago. I don’t remember the first time we met and the way I spilled out my secrets to you, your presence being enough to sever my skin and let all my vices and the loss of my past come pouring out of my stomach like viscera from a freshly slaughtered game animal. I don’t think about the way I undressed in front of you for the first time, taking off my beer stained shirt and putting on your white American Apparel v-neck for only a few moments before you took it off me, your calloused fingers moving with the eager precision of a professional playing the part of an innocent intellectual. I don’t remember the tangles of brown hair that you teased as I lay on your bare chest, taking a drag off your cigarette, listening to you whisper me stories about life on the east coast as I thought this was how it would be from here on out, you and me. Us.

I don’t remember the overwhelming sense of certainty I had about you or the way that the end of our torrid affair was written all over our past conversations, it was sung in your songs, your three minute monuments to all the girls you’d wronged before I came along, all too eager to let you have your way with me.

What I do remember is the last time we spoke, when you told me that you’d had a girlfriend all along, one that you didn’t plan on leaving. I remember the nonplussed look on my face as my cheeks burned because surely this wasn’t really happening, not to me, not with you. I remember reading your apology in my inbox, signed with “I’m sure we’ll speak soon,” and I remember making the conscious decision to not respond, not again, not ever. I remember the way I slowly phased your music out of my life, the way I stopped wearing that v-neck that I used to keep wrapped around me like a security blanket, a sad reminder of everything you’d done for me, a laughable reminder that you cared. I remember how it all felt easier if it was gradual.

I remember listening to the first record you released after we stopped talking and the way I seethed, indignant, when I heard the song you’d doubtlessly written about me, the song lampooning whatever it was that we had, proving the exact amount of nothing I meant to you. It was a song that painted me out to be a needy, pathetic, little girl looking for a savior. You weren’t wrong about me at all but that didn’t make it hurt any less. In fact, having my own naivety pointed out to me in such a public and adored forum only made it hurt all the more.

What I remember about you is the death of a dream and the last gasping breath of my youthful optimism.

I kept my mouth shut about my fuming exasperation at that scathing song and I maintained a professional yet terse relationship with you and your ilk. Never burn a bridge, no matter how much you want to. I kept tabs, of course, listening to your albums as they became available to me but for the most part, I forgot you existed although sometimes, when I’m out, a gentleman will bare a vague resemblance to you and my heart will thump more loudly in my chest. You’re just my type after all and every guy that’s caught my eye since then is a testament to that. You, however, have the distinction of being the first.