tipsy, i walk the streets of this tiny town we once shared headed towards bed, heels platformed too high, skirt sweeping the concrete, silk top skimming across my skin in the late winter breeze, and i listen to you call my name - "...cathryn." you do so as gently as you can muster the syllables sighing from your lungs an encouragement to turn to take your outstretched hand to remember. it rings through the night so warmly i am almost fooled. you never called me anything but a handful of sweet nothings yet your ghost learned how to pronounce each syllable of my whole name rooted in the years i spent deeply learning you. months swatting your fingertips as we read textbooks side by side, debating pop culture or besting one another on crossword solutions or insisting what was going to happen in the next scene of our favorite series, listening to your slurred speech over the phone when you ducked home for a weekend every now and then calling to ensure you could squeeze out a quick 'i miss you...' "...cathryn." your ghost patches the syllables perfectly, chills sliding down my spine, my memory perhaps plucking out the 'th' sound from a time you'd said 'together,' maybe 'ryn' from 'foreign', surely the 'ca' sound from 'can't'. i turn, just to be sure; the sidewalk is empty of course. nothing but a mirage of my own making drawing a line in the sand my subconscious one of the first to recognize that since you i'm not who i used to be.
musée 