I say that to avoid admitting what’s probably closer to the truth —
I can’t bear to part with things.
Good memories, bad ones — doesn’t matter. I keep them close,
like they’re frozen in time.
I think I like knowing exactly where they are.
As if that gives me some control
Some agency over the emotions tied to these little, tangible fragments of memory.
And I don’t mean to brag,
but I’ve collected more than my fair share —
the good, the bad, the painful —
and I’ve kept real-world tokens of them all.
It’s the only thing that won’t settle.
I’ve moved it all over my home,
trying to find a neutral place for it, like I do with everything else.
But no matter where it lands,
And today, from across the living room,
I finally understood why.
It’s not because it’s fresh —
not just because it’s the newest scar.
It’s because that hat refuses to let me forget
what I should have already learned.
It’s whispering — no, shouting —
that I, reader of all things self-help,
follower of every Instagram therapist,
writer of secret late-night odes to all the boys who left too soon,
still haven’t figured it out.
I bought that hat on impulse.
imagined the day I’d wear it.
Cream cotton, green bill,
“golf hat” stitched across the front.
He’d laugh when he saw me in it.
I’d say, “What? This is my golf hat,”
and we’d drink too-warm beers from the cart girl,
“Oof. This is awkward. I thought you were gonna be better at this.”
And I was sure — bone-deep sure — that this day was coming.
This wasn’t a secret, or a maybe.
I bought that hat without shame.
Because I knew I’d wear it.
I knew he’d want to share that part of his world with me.
Now, I sit on my little gray rug,
three doors between me and that awful hat.
And I feel the weight of how certain I was.
And I wonder how long it will take
for that hat to stop haunting me.
to learn not to be so sure,
