An Abecedarian of Memories
Sharing airpods on the way to the airport
You left your black beanie in the hotel bathroom
Your clothes hang heavy on my cold frame like a farewell gift
December will come and bring you back to my distant direction.
An exchange of polaroids between lovers parting ways
Fond memories that stabilize our frail foundation
Glitter sparkled around your irises with your chestnut gaze The mental
souvenir of honey-colored hair in my mouth dwells in my head. The brash
insults of your father brought you injury
and the judgment from the eyes of a stranger across the dim street
Clutching onto your keys as we walk hand in hand down the city
Ran to the library in the winter sleet just to make it there by three.
Music playing from my phone underneath white covers
November brought us fleeting, wondrous time in the night
The outcome was love, and healing, and oven-baked cookies.
The brown-nosing waitress told us we had piano fingers
and I faked a laugh because I realized that I’m quitter.
Matching rose quartz around my neck that ties me back to you
The orbit of my small solar system dances around you
in a thundering trance from a thousand miles away.
I remember the mushy sleet slush under the tires of the Uber
and the vacant vehicles covered in sticky snowflakes.
I’m just a week older, but my soul is wiser and willing
and yet your wine was taken after the airport ran an x-ray and I
realized that after all of these years we are the same two boys: A
lovesick zealot and a pining pessimist now and long after.
Biographical Note: Tyler McDonald is a first-year student at the University of Cincinnati. He is currently majoring in English Education. His work has also appeared in the Short Vine Literary Journal.