You were wearing flannel the day we met.
Blue and gray.
"Jesus, how do you still remember that?"
Those were your words when I told you.
So okay. That's maybe a little weird. But it stood out to me.
And the way your hair falls into your face when you lean over me.
That too.
How did I end up with you?
Well we both know the story. I was dumped in pieces in front of you along with half a bottle of glue by some girl who I thought I knew with the note "have fun!" stuck on my back.
Something like that anyway.
So we took to putting those pieces together. But not the way they were before. I hadn't come with an instruction manual.
The first piece. Walking back home with her on a winter night. Painting windows with her with mugs of hot cocoa warming our freezing fingers. Looking up at the statue of a falling Icaurus because she was afraid that if she went up those states she'd come tumbling back down just like him.
"People change. Let go."
You tossed it aside.
Ouch!
Next piece. Painting and markers and pencil lead; cheap sketchbooks and strolls through art museums. That was familiar. You knew it to. So that one was to keep.
Some of those pieces were kept and others weren't.
The ones I lost I began filling up with pieces of you.
You liked comics. I did too.
I liked Cap but you suggested Doctor Strange.
Okay. Not half bad.
Actually...fantastic.
You dressed up like him on Halloween to surprise me.
It did the trick.
What's next?
You liked a show. Some anime.
Well I'll try that too.
And I liked it! You'd talk to me about it.
The way your gruff exterior and all that silence gave way to long talks about all kinds of things warmed me up. The handles of the doors you had locked were beginning to...loosen up...just a peak...
And I'm back onto the streets. Back to the start.
The way your hand brushed over mine, those times you hugged me from behind...I'd grown accustomed to it. I liked it. It all made me feel a strange warmth where I'd otherwise felt cold.
I shouldn't have gotten used to it.
There were too many pieces of me and you didn't like puzzles.
So what now?
Well here we are.
A year later.
Do you remember how far we've come?
Do you remember when we first met?
You were wearing flannel.
A piece I kept.
