Permanence

I found it while packing,

the yearbook,

and I opened to the page

I'd opened a thousand times before,

the one with their name,

their handwriting,

the specific sentence

that landed like a punch,

that stung like a wound

I couldn't mend.

The words hadn't changed.

The handwriting was still theirs,

the pen still the same blue,

the heart they drew

still there,

still permanent,

still insisting

on meaning something.

I read it again,

and it hurt the way it hurt before,

the specific sting,

the particular pain

that belongs only

to those words,

only to that moment,

only to the person

who thought

it was kind to write it,

who thought it was enough,

who left it

pressed into paper,

thinking time would soften it,

thinking distance would make it fade.

It doesn't.

The sting is fresh.

The wound is fresh

because it's permanent,

because it's printed,

because they chose

to leave it

where I would find it,

where I would read it,

where I would keep reading it,

keep feeling it,

keep carrying it

from house to house,

from one life to another,

the proof

that hurt

lives

in the objects

we can't throw away.