scratches

The same rain pats my head and I slip my feet into the same rubber boots and the rooms smell the same - the exact same, almost eerily so - and the trees are all the same different fall-appropriate pigment. I'm chasing for hours in the future. This place is the lover I never could quite love. This place is the exact same place it was ten months ago. This static backdrop allows us to see how we (as the dynamic characters) have changed. I'm not in love. I'm not ready to leave my body. I'm not thinking about you and only you constantly. My thoughts have become scattered images I cannot trace with exact clarity. I'm alright; I'm quite alright.

I love this place, just not enough. I love these people, but I cannot stay. I'd like those thirteen hours back although they've rotted more terribly than the seconds that expire with each word I type. Gone, gone...gone.

I never could quite love this place.
This was the second chance.
I know this because I could not love this place even without the burden of begging for your affection.

How could I lose you? How did it happen faster than the time we lost so quickly? You were a silent goodbye I was not ready for. But I'm quite alright. I'm not ashamed for a lack of sadness.

It's difficult to trace the contours of each dead hour, trying to grasp them by the tail before they flee for good. Could we chase those hours forward? Of chips and salsa, of Pad Thai, of planning, of not planning, of haze, of talking (about anything), of curly hair, of little touches and bigger giggles, of no goodbye. Of rotting these hours to the core, leaving nothing for now and room for the future.