Four Years Later

Bed undone
Playstation 4 console on the ground
Spenser’s Fairie Queen opened
Laptop on
English Breakfast tea steaming
The Front Bottoms playlist you made is the only thing playing
And the only thing heard.

It is January 2016
And we’re sitting in our first film class at Rutgers. You’re wearing a dark green sweater and I enter with my black, shiny rain boots because it’s been pouring down this month. The first thing we do is lock eyes as I walk through the door and I plop all my weight from my junk onto the floor. A week later, I’m onto more drastic problems because the old couple took my seat and the only seat that’s open is next you. I take the time during film class to study Biology and you’re too busy talking to your friend about the culture. You keep looking over to see what I’m doing now & then. It’s time to get up and go, but your friend makes conversation on my way out. I hear you say as I leave, “ What’s her name?.” So things unraveled & you ended up in my bed. You told me you had to dump your last girlfriend because you kept dreaming of me. Well I had dumped my boyfriend because I kept thinking of better times with you. We spent endless nights watching all the movies and listening to all the music we needed to. Showed up to all the shows and sung our hearts out in the car. You told me you loved me after three months the day we watched the Bergman film at Lincoln Center in NY. My heart dropped and I swore this was the happiest I could be. We made love like teenagers in high school that had no censorship between time or place. I drove to you all the time so we can make ends meet. But, you had to graduate. And things got tougher to handle. My sophomore year was your junior year and we already felt it coming. The arguments brewing and the endless need to make time, but there just was no time. Film in NY was calling your heart and you had to focus on that so you can try to make a name for yourself. The Polaroid pictures slowly came down from the wall and my clothes receded from your drawers. I bought you sunflowers after a month of not seeing you and things felt like they were back to normal. Winter became the worst times. Your body grew cold and my anger was getting inconsolable. I cried for four months straight, because this was the love I lost and desperately needed. So we yelled all night until 3 AM in your car and I left in the rain, last thing I said was “ I don’t love you anymore.” You called 52 times and I answered 0. I couldn’t take it anymore. We couldn’t bear this weight anymore. The last letter you wrote me ended with this, “Will get both of our degrees. Will live together. Everyone after this will not matter. It’s the end of the line, you & me.”


Bed undone
Truffaut film playing
Writing a thesis for my seminar
Your degree is on the wall
A pin of Icarus & Neon Film is on your table
English Breakfast tea half done
Hand on Hand
Our laughter is the only thing heard