Three Years Later
Three years later, a new girl sits cross-legged on your bed. She tastes like a different flavor of gum than you’re used to. She opens up a book that you had to read in high school, and a folded picture of us falls out of chapter three. Now there are two unfinished stories resting in her lap. Inevitably, she asks, and you tell her.
You say: I dated her a while back.
You don’t say: Sometimes, when I’m holding you, I imagine the smell of her vanilla perfume.
You say: She was younger than me.
You don’t say: The 16 summers in her bones warmed the 18 winters my skin had weathered.
You say: It’s nothing now.
You don’t say: But it was everything then.
You say: I dated her a while back.
You don’t say: Sometimes, when I’m holding you, I imagine the smell of her vanilla perfume.
You say: She was younger than me.
You don’t say: The 16 summers in her bones warmed the 18 winters my skin had weathered.
You say: It’s nothing now.
You don’t say: But it was everything then.