The Same Thing, Different Object

It was hanging on a hook

at the thrift store,

same faded logo,

same worn edges,

same soft spot where the stitching

had almost given up,

and I knew before I even picked it up

that this was not the lanyard I lost,

but it was the lanyard I lost,

and the difference was everything.

My lanyard is gone.

This one is someone else's lanyard

that got tired

and was given away

and found its way here

to the hook

at the thrift store

where I was buying something

I didn't need,

something to fill the space

where the other thing was.

I bought it.

I put my keys on it.

The logo is the same.

The wear is almost identical.

But the wear is not mine.

The wear is someone else's hands,

someone else's pocket,

someone else's life

that made these marks,

that rubbed the fabric thin

in these exact places,

that broke it in the way I broke in

my old one.

I'm wearing someone else's worn-out thing,

thinking it will feel like the thing I lost,

thinking that similar enough

is the same as same,

thinking that if I wear it long enough,

if I put my hands on it enough,

if I wear the fabric down enough,

I can make it mine.

But it won't be mine.

It will be mine and not mine.

It will be the lanyard I lost

and the lanyard I found,

and the difference will grow

every day,

every hand,

every pocket,

every small repeated motion

that makes the thing

that it is,

that makes it not

the thing I had before.

I'm wearing it anyway.

The keys feel heavier.

The logo is still wrong.