It Was Fall

The first time we said goodbye was in the fall. I’m not sure if it was the letting go the season does imperfectly that was used as inspiration, or maybe, more like the leaves, I could feel my stems breaking. It wasn’t your fault. Though I’m sure the leaf does not see the tree in this way. I was unhappy and you were miserable. We both cried, in secret. I didn’t tell you I wasn’t sleeping but you figured out, somehow.

I remember you were saying how pretty New York was. You had gone hiking for over four hours, a walk filled with rejuvenating reflection. It was fall. The sites were beautiful. You told me how much I would love it the same moment I broke your heart. You cried in your hotel room that night. You didn’t have to tell me, but when you did I had already guessed.

I cried well into the snow. I wrote poems; about you, about us, about the nothingness that strayed after the nothingness we were, but somehow we claimed to be something. You wrote poems; about me, about us, about the futures you dreamt but never told anyone. Not even yourself. Only the paper knew of your reveries.

The second time we said goodbye was in December. You had written me a letter that had made me cry after I thought I was done crying, about you, about us. You claimed you had taken something from me. You wished me happy birthday. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I replied and regretted it, thinking my words to be what broke you. You wrote me a poem in January, and eight more in February. I wanted to let you go.

Then it was fall. I hadn’t heard from you since March. I had stopped looking for you in the things I believed to be unrecognizable, only to look closer and find you. You had a job now. Something that took you near the rivers, the sea. I know this because of the pictures you sent to no one in particular. They came with your words, saying how you still thought about me, about us. It was fall. A year had gone. I didn’t reply to your poem. Knowing if I did, you would want me to stay.

I wrote to you in secret. Only the paper knowing of the things I wished to tell you. I had been angry, sad, upset. Emotions I no longer felt towards you, towards us. The entirety of our nothingness that somehow turned to somethingness now irrelevant. I had school, we had had summer two summers ago and now last summer was distant in my memory. Though I still find myself searching for the books you have recommended me. And the songs you sang but never titled. To think of you now leaves me feeling odd, and lonely for something I don’t understand. You once told me you were the only coffee person you knew. I wonder if this has changed.