i try

i grudgingly get into bed with the heart underwear i bought for valentines day on...they are my last clean pair and i would rather sleep with them on then naked. naked means too much, too comfortable. too safe, too sure. too our bed, too many nights, too much.
i remember buying them and thinking they were so cute, how you would like them, how on valentines day i had come home drunk from mimosas with the crew, i was the only one with a boyfriend, a place to be, how i couldnt wait to shower, to put lotion on and then these underwear, these silly little white underwear with red hearts. how i had never cared about anything like this, how i had never had a chance to do anything like this. to live with someone, to keep things exciting, to be fun, to be silly, to be in love.
i remember when i packed to move, i packed so carefully i thought, i brought only things that would remind me of you. my favorite underwear, your plaid shirt you had given me to sell at a sun sale and i had kept, a sweatshirt i only wore at home, with you, underwear you loved to see me walk around the house in, shirts i had worn on important nights out, jackets that still smelled of your shoulders, your arms, things that still smelled of that apartment. i had packed carefully i thought, and now, and now. now i have no hoodies, i dont have enough socks, i didnt bring enough nice clothes, i only have leggings and all my nice shoes are in storage, mingled amongst your things, somewhere in some storage bin between sf and east bay.
now i just have things i can hardly look at, things i can hardly stand to have on my body.
but in reality, you are everywhere. its not just my clothes. it is music, it is food, its my words, it is everything. i cant tell a story without you in it.
in the book, i just keep trying to write everything before, because nothing now makes sense, but it all just keeps leading up to the months before i met you, to where my life really began.
this morning im washing dishes and something clicks. i will never wash dishes in that apartment again, with vito sunbathing on the deck and ghostland observatory or au revoir simone or tv on the radio playing in the background while you work. these things, these tiny little things that were my life, will never happen again. and it is heartbreaking. i had a life with someone.
and now, and now, that life is gone. so quickly, so immediate. i keep thinking there is something i could have done. i could have stayed, i should have tried harder.
but i know its not that, its not me. its not us, its not you. its not that city.
so i just keep washing the dishes until theyre all done. i wear these underwear to bed and i hate it. but i try to remember and forget at the same time and hope that i will see you in my dreams and that things will be different. i try to sleep. i try to keep things simple. i try to just let underwear be underwear and washing dishes be dishes and you be you and i try, mostly, to keep on keepin on.