I wrote her a letter of love. I poured my emotions into words I hoped would move her. She called me and said, I didn’t realize you were old.

We watch the sun and she wonders about life and death and the precarious nature of nature. She takes my hand. While I melt from the boredom.

She handed me a photo and I studied the face in it and I said, You used to look so different, and she takes it back and says, That’s not me.

Because I asked, What does this one do? and didn’t wait for her answer. Because I was once overly unhappy. Because she smelled like cookies.

He left his sweatshirt behind and she stared at it, trying to remember him, and she picked it up and took a sniff and then she threw it out.