a while ago i started building this list of songs in my head to prevent myself from talking about anymore. i thought they might be the first ones i'd listen to once we were friends again, as if saving them for you would preserve all the magic they used to possess, as if freezing them in time would make it seem like nothing’s changed. but i let them all go eventually, floating off one by one like balloons, listening to them once and feeling bad and then never thinking about them again. in record shops, my first instinct used to be to look for a used copy of souvlaki, because i thought it might be the first thing i'd gift you once gifting made sense again. but i bought myself one a couple days ago and almost forgot all about that instinct, till i was in the car driving back home, staring at the discography on the back of it, remembering that that moment was supposed to mean something more. one day this past summer, i tried to buy a bob dylan cd at the thrift store but dropped it at the cash, and the case broke, and the cashier had to ask if i still wanted it, and i took a second too long to decide if i really did. i doubt i'd listen to anything i do now without your influence, without following you everywhere, walking in your footsteps, trusting everything you did with my entire heart.

i wanted to absorb you. i wanted you in my bloodstream. the best i could do was learn to love all the things you did, to learn to live through your senses. you made me playlists and i got to listen through you. you baked me cinnamon bread and i got to taste through you. you gifted me with so much, with sounds your ears liked, flavours your mouth liked, thoughts your brain pondered again and again and i did the same. i built a collection of all these tiny bits of you and it grew so big i had to start putting them on my own shelves, putting them in my playlists, in my closet, in my starbucks order, in all the things i dreamt about and wanted and searched for. your pieces, my pieces, they all became the same thing. i borrowed your heart and made it my own. and when you took it back, and told me i ruined everything, i had to stare at rows and rows of things i forced myself to love because of you, and wonder who i was without them.

who am i now, without you? a mismatched collage, a mess of undried glue? i’m cracks you don’t fill anymore. i’m a time capsule of the person you used to be and i’m unchanging. if i stray too far, what’ll happen? what’s underneath all these layers of past people? they're goners. i’m in limbo. it's a new year, though. i'll try to heal this time.