What Gets Saved

I opened the glove compartment

and found my own handwriting,

which was strange enough on its own—

finding yourself in a place you didn't remember

being, in someone else's car,

on a piece of paper

folded twice and tucked

between the registration

and an old pack of gum.

The note said something small,

something I don't even remember

thinking, and the date was

seven years ago.

Seven years.

I stared at my own handwriting

like it was someone else's,

like the person who wrote it

was a different version of me

that I'd forgotten about,

that I'd left behind in this car

without meaning to.

There was a drawing in the margin—

something I used to do,

doodle in the corners,

mark up the edges of everything.

I traced my finger over it

and felt the paper,

felt the indent where I'd pressed hard

with the pen.

This is what survives.

Not the big moments,

not the things we think we're saving,

but the small forgotten notes

left in borrowed cars,

the handwriting from years ago,

the evidence that we were here,

that we were thinking something,

that we pressed hard enough

to leave a mark.

I folded it again

the way it had been folded,

and put it back

between the registration

and the gum,

where it had been waiting

all this time

for me to find myself again.