Pocketed Change
They knock against each other,
clanking and jingling with every step,
their combined weight pulling me down until
I become one with the funeral home’s jaded carpet floor.
I pull one out—
a letter I should have written to you—
and the never-formed words stare at me in shame.
I pull out another,
this time it is that thank you that
my mouth,
in its rushed excitement,
forgot to give to you.
This time, out comes a bundle,
a group of emails I
never sent to you because I
was “too busy”.
But I’m not “too busy” to be
here, gazing at your empty face.
Murmurs flitter up to my ears like
butterflies, innocent and true, yet
still classified as pests. Yes,
I am the
one who he held dear. I am the
girl he treated as his biological daughter. I am the
best in that clique labeled “friends”. I am all these things
and I am also
the one who holds yearfuls—
not handfuls—of lost
change,
of expired, of devalued, of
pocketed change.
There is no machine
on this planet that can
exchange my
pocketed change
for tangible moments of what
should have been
with someone who deserved
all of the what wases and
all of the what could have beens and
all of the what should have beens
and more;
for, if such a machine did
exist, I would have run it past its limits
ages ago, exchanging my
pocketed change
for all of the unborn time spent between us.