I’ve noted them all, the remarkably different personalities. Some try to keep me by writing me a song or a poem to make me think I was different as if I didn’t already know as much. Some who try to fuck me into staying, like fucking has anything to do with love. Some gave big grand gestures to prove their vulnerability, and some responded to my apathy with silence, simply because they thought that would win my affection. They never understood it. Affection was never something to be won. I never saw these boys as men because they weren’t. Boys chase a game of conquering. The ones who honestly thought they were done with the games always took everything the hardest. Their elaborate home-cooked dinners and genuinely appreciated gifts that acknowledged their sincerity almost always carried a sadness with them. Sometimes I even felt guilty to the point of brutal honesty. Do not get the wrong idea here, this is… fleeting. That’s how I liked it. From the second I met them I bounced adjectives around in my brain to make sure I got them right on paper. I won’t let them be anything more than characters in a book. I studied their faces, eye colors, and the inflections in their voices and asked about their mistakes. They mistook this for infatuation when I was merely painting a perfectly worded picture for my collection. I loved it, my little collection. I was 20 years old the first time a boy spat the word “elusive” at me like it was supposed to hurt. I laughed and closed the door extra tight behind me. I never wanted to be the girl who stayed. The only one I was ever captivated by was the one I knew I could never get right on paper. The one words can’t touch.  He is my rectangle. My kind of perfect, issues, he had many, mixed with mine we, together were mostly made of flaws and poorly stitched together good intentions. A patch job with old duct tape. And no matter what kind of earnest attempt to make him conform to my heart-shaped box.  He still doesn’t suit that old collection. So, I begged him, mostly my pride silently wished for him to stay.  So that, once at least one morning I could trace the line of his jaw with my hands.

I’ve come to realize, that there will never be enough prose to get him right on paper.