stones in my stomach

Memories are now like pebbles I collect, loading down my pockets with them, hoarding them and wanting to store them in little corners. To tuck them into the ears of friends, the pages of books, and the folds of my skin. I eat rocks because they remind me of the earth and I consume memories like they are commodities, just taking as much as I can for as little as I can, the voracious neoliberalist consumer I am.

When I found out. I was walking across the crosswalk, walking from one side of my life to the other, in the space of a footstep I had crossed over. I couldn’t comprehend, all I could feel was fear and anger, and all I could see was your little face, face of my once familiar dad, moving away from me as if on a train I had just missed.

Like a candle just blown out, a plane just lifted into the air, the moment of departure seemed to slide into a moment quicker than comprehension. And I don’t want to let it go. I don’t want you to fade into the past, I want to hold onto the feeling of your presence, your just-here presence. Already fading. Just stay with me a little while longer.