letting someone go (a poem)

IV. Epistolary

An entry in the shower
and the last entry I’ll ever write about
Simon Hockenberger-Harris
At least for now.

“Dear Simon,

I’ll say I loved you to an extent where—
You know I’m the type of person who doesn’t listen to playlists. At least not the whole thing, ever, or in order. I’m the type of person who makes them, and never look back. And obviously I rarely listen to other people’s playlists, maybe only a song or two.
But I’ll listen to every song if you wrote a hundred of them down on paper, and I’ll search all of them up, and listen to them.
I’ll listen to them until I know them all, until I’ve memorized their lyrics, and then I’ll sing to you, and you might not even recognize some of the songs I sing because they didn’t have to be your favorites. They could’ve been any song, ones that you didn’t even know, and I would still have listened to them.
But I can’t sing to you, when you haven’t even given me a list.
And now I understand that I can’t force you to do that. Especially when you’ve probably already made a playlist for somebody else.
Maybe we’ll become close friends again in the future, and I hope I’ll see you then. But for now, enjoy the music.

Yours again,
Callie.”