Subintelligitur.

(In which half of the writing is done by someone else. In which half of the writing is lies.)

Sometimes I burst out laughing with all the remembering I do, like the time your cold fingertips tickled the inside of my arm as you traced the vein towards my heart, or the time you wiped the river of tears from my cheeks with the palm of your hand, wrapped me bear-like in both arms and whispered corny joke after corny joke into my ear until my tears transformed to those of laughter. Sometimes looking at memories of you is like looking at a fire and wondering whence the spark. "Or do I?" you asked, and oh yes you do. And now I want to know just how much you've forgotten me.

Pour a little salt, we were never here.

I have this thing sometimes where I want to kiss you, and not just chastely, either. I want to grab you in the middle of the street, pull your face to mine and breathe you in. I have this thing where it doesn't matter, any of it, any of this or what has passed. It's just too bad that doesn't matter either.

The shape of your mouth . . . I could draw it by heart.

They say all children save one grow up, but I know this to be untrue. I myself was too early drafted into motherhood--I am still but a child, you see--and yet here I've been these many decades darning socks, kissing boo-boos, wiping messy chins. Tedious work it is, and thankless to boot. Oh, I've been given the boot before, and sometimes still I feel adrift in a borrowed nest, no place of my own to call home. It's all a mess, you see.

My keys have gone missing with my marbles and I am locked out, or rather in, fighting my shadow up and down the wall, a bar of soap in one hand and nary a happy thought in mind. There are so many riddles to unlock, so many secret passwords to remember, that I find myself overwhelmed at the thought, tied to a sinking anchor with no way out. Gosh, if only someone would clapclapclap and believe in me. I think I need an ovation.

As it is I'm collecting thimbles instead of kisses, I'm riding these sleepless nights straight on until morning. Sometimes it's all so tiring, this being so small and insignificant.

You were cold as the ice at your front door.

"I don't love you," you said, or rather, didn't say, and it's the things we keep quiet that hurt the most. But you know that already.

I am armed with the past and the will and a brick . . . .

Well, you all know the rest.