So, why, yes, this is me catching up–or not, can’t get too excited here! The highest number of days I’ve ever participated in OctPoWriMo is 17. So, here’s to at least beating that record!

Today’s is a short prose poem.

Photo by Filip Kominik on Unsplash

Doors

I found pictures today, you smiling, very white teeth against olive skin. Another shows us: me looking slim and cute, adjectives I think years later, not then, as if I’m a different person (I am), you the same smile. I remember that hike, barely, leaving work early to go hiking, burnished leaves, chilled skin in white jeans shorts, you saying, “don’t tell Stephanie.” Not because we were doing anything wrong, but because she’d be irrationally jealous. I knew how irrational she could be. (She never forgave me for things not my fault.) We strode through doors, leaving friendship behind, remaining only in photographs, like souvenirs, to find on days like today, sorting through life, remembering I’d not been invited to the wedding, feeling only half-sorry, your half.

Sascha Darlington