All That Is Here Is Sunlight

I thought better of myself then

I remember him. I remember him on the day the sun set even later that night, the day he went to collect his rent cheques, the day the sidewalk looked empty underneath my boots. I remember him the day we sat in a bus shelter with his hand on my thigh covered in denim. I remember him glancing at me before all else turned into a memory, turning to me with the same smile he gave a junkie in the park before we turned into different versions of ourselves, worse or better I can’t remember. But I remember him screaming from the bathtub after he accidentally cut himself shaving. I remember him screaming from the sink when he purposefully cut himself shaving. I remember him smiling at the window and saying goodbye so softly I didn’t hear it. I remember his tobacco mouth, his heavy sweaters, his teeth stained from nicotine and too much working-mens coffee from the cafe down the street. I remember the way he talked of seaside towns and girls who weren’t in love with him, which sometimes included me. I remember the way his hands were rough and the way he grabbed my hair like fistfuls of sand and took my leg in between his thighs. I remember the photograph smiles, the one-stop subway rides, the calls at four AM, the broken cell phone, and once, in his rage, a lamp crashing to the floor. I kept the bits of glass in a paper bag. I still have them, even today. He didn’t leave any words, because I never did well with those. He left something that did brighter than what we thought it could do, that wrapped itself in a clairvoyance I didn’t know existed before he sat so still on the bridge and promised me he wouldn’t jump off. I have never seen anyone sit so still, and for a minute it felt like the world was peaceful, like it wasn’t against us in that moment. I thought better of myself then. I studied for my tests. I ate my vegetables. He screamed in the bathtub, sometimes because he cut himself by accident, sometimes because he did so on purpose. So if you ask me if I remember, I do. I misplace my objects but not my people. When he leaves he will leave, and good riddance to that, because he did. That’s okay too. Sometimes sadness is the other side on the double-edged sword of beauty. And so if you’re asking me if I remember, I remember. I remember all of it because it’s there. It’s there like the bits of glass are there. It’s funny, I saved what was wrecked, but I forgot where I buried our reasons.