Keepsakes

I had been fixated on, obsessed with this idea of perfection far before you came around. I recall being a child, thinking about these kinds of things as my parents drove me around, or as I walked Squirrel Creek Road. I had learned that perfection was impossible, and that only God himself was perfect. I dismantled this theory almost immediately, knowing that perfection was subjective, and that god was only flawless from his (or anyone else's) point of view. I remember it being exciting, the idea of anything being perfect coming back to life. I was certain then, that the potential for something being flawless to me was quite plausible, and with so much of my life ahead, it was even probable. In my late teens I thought quite similarly, but the concept broadened, or warped a bit with time. Now I conceived not only was the perfect arrangement of words, the perfect moment, the perfect person, the perfect connection within my grasp, but I relished in the fact that I knew it could be. I lauded myself possessing the possibility mentally, and emotionally, that I myself could appreciate something to the point of it being perfection. I can remember looking at your face and knowing it, being so astounded that I held within me the secret, the monumental but totally private awareness of found perfection. How could no one else see it? The way the sunlight hit your smile on those train tracks; my photographs did you justice I thought, but never my writings, but I continued with those anyway. I laid on your bed in that apartment, that I drove so long and far to reach, and told you I loved you like someone who was in love with someone did. I got the courage to look up at you, sitting next to where I lay, you didn't say a word. Of course I miss you. All things got tainted, twisted and warped, we hardly live on the same earth, and you are just one button press away. I ceased to listen to the songs you would sing to me, ones that remind me of you or then, cooking food you would like, wearing or looking at things you had given me, pictures, poems. Can't help but wonder if you threw out that sweatshirt, how it happened, or if it is in the back of a drawer somewhere, there, or your mom's house I used to stay at. God knows how many of your possessions I have stored in the back of every drawer.


I promised myself I would stop speaking of you like this, so candidly, but no one will recognize you described like this, for every person has their own version of perfection, a large part of the magic was that only I saw you as I did, still do, 
I am not sure.

I am reminded of you still when I look in the mirror, each and every time, still not certain whether this is your fault or mine. But since you left, every day has felt like I was leaving the house while forgetting something, drank caffeine before trying to sleep, self declared most dramatic person in the world, and didn't get invited to your funeral.