An Old Home is an Ex-Lover

Memory has a way of reducing everything to the two dimensional. People and cities are left with a few choice lines, as their nuances fall away. But, when we are brought back together the blanks fill themselves.

I am captured by your familiar asymmetry; the slope of your nose, the sweep of your streets. I've thought about you so many times, and here you are. Unpredictable and visible from every angle.

The response is Pavlovian, and as I look at you love rushes in waves of warmth to my fingertips.

You are dazzling in your imperfection.

But after all, you are real. Not the vision in my memories. The same way your subtle sounds got lost in our time apart, so did the shadows. I begin to remember them too, and why we are apart.

When the time comes for goodbye, I pull you into my chest and feel your single softness. And, I let go. 

I'm relieved that you are no longer mine. Though the thought makes my heart ache with emptiness.

[ (1) pentax k1000 on film. Mission Beach, San Diego (p.s.) a letter to San Diego when I missed it most | knowing something exists, even when you can't see it is called object permanence]