Cartography

You wore my shadow so well. Heavy trenchcoat aboard your shoulders. You'd shrug it on and I'd stare at the sight of you dressed in me. Unsure of how you could fit inside it. And then you'd push it off just as easily. And I couldn't reconcile my gratitude and my disappointment. There are words for what I felt, but I don't know them. All I see are outlines. Crayon silhouettes shaking above the maps they've drawn on us.

And we color everything in until we don't even know why

We put those shadows back on their hangers and wait for another closet to let us in.

Wearing each other in the meanwhile. Telling ourselves they fit.

Mapping out the past in cold abbreviations until the whole words give in. I'd let it go if I thought for one minute that's what you wanted.

It's so over, but we're doomed to envy our past. Because no future could ever flaunt such promise as catatonic dreams can.

And when I remember you I only think that I could've been more real. Not the skin you shed, but the one you took with you when you left.