June 2nd
I spared a thought for you today. I hadn't done that in a while, and I didn't know if that was because I had forgotten or if I had just piled so many things into my head that I didn't have the time to dwell on things past. I like to think it's the latter because, contrary to my last letter, I don't like to think that I've forgotten you. You're too important to me. Well, to the old me, at least.
The thought of you came to me in the diner this morning. I hadn't been to that little diner in months. I had grown fond of the noisy Starbucks down the street whose foundation vibrated with the liveliness of the people inside. I sat in the booth in the back corner of the diner where we would always sit with our friends, piling ourselves onto each others' laps because there wasn't enough space for all of us; my seat was always you. I remember you saying that the entire diner wasn't enough room for us because "we're all so alive and have such an overwhelming lust for existing."
I wasn't sure why, but I was compelled to order a tea, and so I did. I hadn't realized that I ordered it the way you used to. I was never much of a tea drinker, and so I told the waitress, "The Grey kind with ice." You always tried to get me to drink it, but I always settled for my lemon water... until today. I think I'll order it again someday.
When the tea arrived, the waitress set the cracked little mug on the left corner of the table, and when I picked it up, there were the initials "D + K" scratched into the wood of the table top with the fresh ring of tea encompassing them. I remembered when you did it: we were drunk to oblivion and stumbled our way to the diner to get coffee, and there was a couple sitting in our booth, so you waited until they left, and with your key, you scratched our initials into the table top and you said that everyone would know that that was our spot and no one could ever take it away from us. I traced my finger tips over the D, and the quiet, nearly empty diner suddenly felt far more alive than the Starbucks down the street.
My head became filled to the brim with the thought of you so much that my skull barely had room for my eyes, especially when I remembered what you used to say about us. You liked the term "skinny love," but the way we felt wasn't skinny at all. It was rotund and corpulent and spilled from all of our orifices, pushing against the backs of my eyes and squeezing through my teeth and I was suddenly so astounded at how much I had repressed that feeling since the day, long ago, when you scratched our initials into the table. I used to think we'd never forget, but I suppose that time forgets, not us.
Even so, I hope someday as you drink tea in the corner of a diner tracing the table top's imperfections with your soft finger tips that you spare a thought for me.
