In Love's Uneven Remainders, There Lie the Fractions of a Whole

I wander my room, drinking tequila for breakfast, dancing without music. Tuneless, rhythmless swaying against morning sunlight coming through yellowed blinds.

And then I remember the records.

I touch each spine, gently—sacred relics of adventures. I remember the happier times and reason there must be some level of blind ignorance necessary to romanticize the past.

But I do it anyway.

Eyes closed, I pull out a record at random. The Highwaymen. On the inside, your chicken scratch writing. One of your dog house letters. I run my fingers over the indent of each letter in the forty year old paper. I. Love. You. It never did get you out of the dog house.

Maybe when the paper is eighty years old, our love will be a mystery on the shelf of another—a yard sale relic, a treasure to someone new. Our story will be reimagined by a fresh mind and unburdened heart. We’ll be given a happy ending—one where we die old and together, wrapped up in each others arms. Heroes of the heartland, love’s uneven remains.

And somewhere, our song will play forever... but it's far, far from me.