it's been more than a decade and your message still haunts me every time i'm faced with a flatpack and a leaflet of instructions
you said you'd even help assemble the ikea furniture
we weren't even together, yet he helped me move the furniture. the ikea daybed. we were together, and it was almost expected he would, and he obliged. i wonder how many times they've had to move their own since, or hers - however numerous they were.
why would you be helping? would it not also have been our home? would you be "babysitting" your own children?
the flatpacks have since been moved to the backyard, torn to pieces, fit into garden beds that he helped me assemble. i stand over them, face passive, mind pensive, wordlessly dropping in another shovelful of dirt, of mulch, of things not-really-alive-but-hopefully-bringing-life
how are your stories? do you still write? not to me, not anymore
he took out the pieces and started assembling them to get a head start. we've assembled and disassembled, time and again, this time something new, last time something, someone else's, a new home, a new life
when i unbox the new mirror, the reflection i see, the one i miss the most, is not yours
a few thousand dollars in ikea furniture, delivery, allen keys and meatballs later, yet when we assemble furniture together, my mind goes back to that throwaway line, our throwaway life, the one i keep crumpling and smoothing out and reimagining, the creases increasing as everything around it fades, the vessel changing without its contents remaining
sealed with a kiss, undone with a pair of scissors, this time in reverse
gummygunk
jimmyeatworldofficial
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
