I Remember

That morning I had woken up to you munching on dried roses, on my dresser, decaying bouquet in a mildew mason jar, gathering dust from a prom I’d rather forget, I guess you just couldn’t wait for breakfast,

So I wrote a song for you, about chewing roses, about lapping wine from forest puddles, and

I’m sober now, but something tells me you already knew, I never had to tell you anything because you felt it in your body, in all your vertebrae I rubbed through your slick tabby coat, spine like buttons, bundling your precious set of organs, and

One year later, I still find strands, charcoal, ashy gray, you know I’ve always been bad at cleaning my room, and so you stay there, hidden, between my trinkets and under my dresser, piling on the blades of my ceiling fan,

I turn it on and you disperse, waltz slowly through the air, and

I went to the park, my favorite park, the park of firsts and some lasts, where I built memories and destroyed them, where the pond’s muddy water envelops my heart, and

I saw you, I heard you, it was calm and then it wasn’t, the water was glass reflecting the amber sky, and then you showed up, bold and honking, you were a wild flock of geese, the biggest loudest crowd, and the pond, a mirror, shattered with your arrival, and

I felt you, I tossed a crystal, maybe rose quartz, I brought it with me because it reminded me of the pink of your nose, so I skipped it, like a rock, it sunk to the pond’s floor, I’m not sure how deep, but I felt it drop with my stomach, and

You took it, knew it was for you, and it was for the pond, for the geese, they didn’t stop showing up, splashing around like toddlers at a water park, free and unaware, I cried until my nose bled, evening chill caught me by the throat, and

You were there, an Adam’s apple, wedged in my esophagus so I could only breathe you, and I remembered, your nutty scent, how it radiated so intensely off your scalp, as if you wanted me to smell exactly like you, and

I was reminded, we are one, two geese mated for life, four wings flapping in metronome time, and

I sometimes see you, in Penny, my family’s new cat, but she’s different,

Different color, different noises, different smells, different spot she lays on my body, different paws (now with claws), but you’re still there, in her warmth, in her photogenic faces, and I love her, I love you, I love you both in different ways, and

It’s confusing,

It’s terrifying,

It’s the greatest comfort I’ve ever known.