i looked at your blog. i snuck back there because i had to see how you were using the EM dash. do you still put spaces on either side—pretending to a standard you’ve never owned—or have the crawlspaces between your thoughts collapsed in on each other? have i rubbed off on you, too? i’m looking for a scuff mark i might recognize but i know you hide the places where you have been dinged, where you drew too close in the dark. i know because you’d have to unzip me and press your nose into my fabric to smell where i’ve been. but from the inside i know it still smells like you. even though the notes of nostalgia have gone. even though your scent has become mine. even though the past seems incapable of gripping me in the way it needs to, never seeming to hold me in place.

—04.06.26