it was 3pm and the fog was still curling around the tree trops in somber gray crowns. when I want to get really out of my mind, I walk into the woods. right then I was walking pretty aimlessly, alone, save the hibernating leaf litter phantoms.

there's this sunday school bible verse in which the body is the temple of the holy spirit. but I also read from a poet that a human being is made out of forest canopies. I decide on the latter and give myself to the anomalous sort of hopelessness settling into the threads of my sweater. for a mile or two, I pretend to be robert frost, but I was never really cut out for the transcendental club. so instead I drop my backpack and dig for earbuds. I dig for my earbuds for a good 5 minutes and the split second I realize where they are, my phone rings. the sound is deafening and I feel the forest toss and turn, like who knew you could even pick up a phone connection out in the backcountry? I apologize to the trees profusely. 

on my phone, in my hands, your name sends a shot of warmth through my bloodstream, like espresso, diluted by a panicked "hello?" you voice is angry. and abrasive! and amplified by the fog, asking why I left my earbuds at your house. you told me not to leave any of my shit in your apartment! you asked me twice if had everything, and I reassured you I did. what kind of game was I trying to play??

I tell you to just throw them away. the earbuds. my thumb reflexively brushes over the end call button and the fog crackles. I am jack's complete lack of surprise.

but it still hits me hard, it still brings my knees to the wet leaves that seep their way deep into my patellas. the fog shackles my wrists to the ground and I sit there for a long pathetic time. I know why you're angry at me, but they're just fucking earbuds. they have no haunt potential.

but then I think of your stupid bobby pins, which I still occasionally find on my bedroom floor, sometimes with rogue strands of copper hair still attatched. I think of how they probably got there. I think of your red lips, your fingers tugging at hems, my fingers tugging at rubber bands, carefully plucking out each pin until your hair fell to your shoulders in red rivers.

like what is it about breakups that makes me romanticize the shit out of girls and their hair?

I think about the events leading up to this point with my knees and palms pressing against the forest floor. I think about your won't-ever-happen-again face as you walk out the door.

ok

I was supposedly incommunicado and there was someone else.

ok

not that I'm jealous or upset or feel strange in anyway.

well...ok  

set aside today specifically to write and I can't fucking write.

okay let's try this –

red blossoms are falling on my fingers which are stalled on laptop keys –

maybe this would be more romantic if it were pen & paper but my pen hemorrhaged a week ago when I bumped into you in the garden. your eyes met mine and my pen literally burst, ink smudged my palms and my jaw which I ran a shaking hand over. nauseated, I dragged my eyes away, thinking "be like water to rocks, be like water to rocks." 

that was a week ago and I still wish I was in the Japanese countryside, at least then I'd be justified in feeling like a gaijin. 

darling, I really liked what we were doing, but the honest truth is that I was using you for your sexytime playlists. I picked up the best music when you turned the lights down and the speakers up. 

that's not the whole truth. the whole truth is I liked you a lot more than I was prepared for. a shame our rhythm was like two ticking clocks left to their own devices.

once had a friend who was born with perfect pitch. I would run through guitar chords over and over until he would pick up on something average ears couldn't dream of, and his fingers would shoot out like lightning to nudge a peg ever so lightly, back to equilibrium. 

that's what we were like. something was dangerously out of tune, but both of us were wearing the same earmuffs. or maybe you took them off ages before I did and chose not to say anything. fuck. why didn't you say anything?