on second thought, a moment of your time.

The way we were, the ease of unwitting banter, the end of the only way we will ever know one another, here in this city, the one that never moved past the renaissance, he'd once said, the one we came to completely adore in that way we never thought we would've.

When you start to appreciate something for all those things you once perceived as faults. I knew it was love, and yet it took me forever to admit, to realize. And now I have to let you go.

"----

I walked by your room earlier this evening, and I paused. I'd heard your room was still unlocked. You'd left sheets on your bed, some old clothes folded, and your keys laid on your desk. Your keys. I, I had my keys together as I was walking around the city today, and I had them in my hand, and out of nervous habit I started flipping them with my fingers, in my hands, and it was the same sound, the way we always knew who was entering the kitchen, or the stairway because you always had those keys in your hands. You had this ocd habit of locking your door every time you left the room. And now you're gone, and your room, it still smells of you, and the door's not locked. You're not there anymore.

As we leave, as we all leave, as we empty out these rooms that we've made into our home this past year, stripped of everything that made it ours. We pass on these keys, our stack of keys.

....