The Version He Kept

He got the detail wrong again —

the city, not the bar, the spring,

not winter — and I held my beer

and let him have the whole bright thing.

Seven years. I've watched it grow

more fixed each time he tells it,

the story hardened into fact

the way a good lie finally fits.

My thumb found the bottle label's edge

and drew it off in one slow strip.

The paper curled against the floor.

The words kept coming from his lip —

warm words, the kind that make a room

lean in and nod. They leaned and nodded.

And I stood there, clean and mute,

my small correction long since rotted

into something I can't plant back.

He looked at me when he was through.

I said, yeah, god, that's exactly how —

and raised the bottle. That's what I do.

The label on the floor. His face

still open with the telling of it.

There is a version of myself

he loves. I built it. I just let it.