on keeping
loss- our most revered meme, our most scathing threat, the only fear of the fearless- has been on my mind lately. there was something i was anticipating and fearing losing for a very long time now, & when its time finally came, i found i was not as worse off as i thought i would be.
i counted my losses, i took accountability, and i looked at the remainder- and i found i had, in fact, carried the proverbial zero. i had kept.
the more action word would be ‘persevered’. i suppose it's not for nothing that neoliberals say bullshit like ‘you lose when you give up’, but the counterpoint to loss here isn't winning, but keeping.
you could keep the score, or promises, or anything that reminds you of me. boyfriend hoodies, a solid memory, or maybe just a little trust ground in fairy dust in a vial around your neck.
turns out i was wrong 5 years ago, and things never leave without leaving things. like fleabag’s season 1 boyfriend, we wait. your scarf in my life, stuffed to keep my mouth shut, i wait. but you don't come to get it back. you leave it behind to come back.
the scared are damn smart though. grip tightening, as the sand slips away, if they can't choose what they will lose, they’ll choose what they can keep. like a purification ritual, we rip through each other's innards, either drunk, or male, or some other excuse, scavenging for what we came for, taking with us what only took from us.
how are we so good at this? at keeping the story intact even as everything else falls apart? is it only so we remember our way back? mapless, stumbling in mind palace?
my favourite bit is the access. the please take from me, im begging you. i’m on my back, blooming, unfolding, unraveling. take me, keep me, so i can rememeber what this feels like. like blueprints on my back, with just your wandering fingers. like the shape of the smoke.
darling please pass me the cigarette, and i’ll keep the flower in my phone case, and please keep that shirt, i only bought it because you would think i look good in it. it's yours.
keeping is the promise. this stays here. us survives you & me. in a conversation between two characters in a movie we wrote but haven't made, like a flower pressed between pages, by the banks of our words, we’ll always find us.