Obsession

You were the perfect room. Your collarbones straight and sharp like windowpanes, your lips the perfectly positioned red couch. Your short bleached hair like the glistening masterpiece of glasswork I saw once at the Corning Museum of Glass. It was textured, made of a million shards and glowed hanging from the ceiling. You deserved nothing less than to be lit up by such an extraordinary act of dedication, of love for aesthetic.

I wanted to fill you up with little things, and so I did. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, solar panels, how sperm whales sleep, the lifecycle of a cicada. You made room for all my offerings, and your shelves filled up with the Japanese language, geopolitics, how to throw a discus and hammer. You were so open, doors wide to receive me.

I only wish I could have continued to tell you about everything. Organic chemistry, Inuk culture, the ancient Picts, James Joyce, the Gawain Poet, Shirley Jackson, my writing all of my writing.

I still remember our last conversation. About a boy I dated. And you shut me out, both of us knowing the person I obsessed about was you.

This is from a

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