August 27, 2008.
I had told him how I felt and wanted. I wanted more. We’d made up. We are snuggled in bed. but he felt the need to talk to me about it. So he rolls over to my side of the cover and looks at me through the near-darkness and tells me he knows this isn’t what I want to hear but he says he has no affection to give me

August 28, 2008
Day of the Dead, recently deceased: him and me

August 27, 2009
He messaged me a day before the anniversary of our demise. He wondered if we were on speaking terms. 364 days he could have come around, apologized, anything. I needed him to help me find closure.

August 28, 2009
I told him, let me be.

April 8. I’ll have been in Arkansas 19 years. I still remember intervals of aching when it had been only 1 day, 3 months, 1 year in Arkansas.

April 3. Nearly 7 months and I finally think I’m ready to let go of the counting. Maybe acknowledge the year anniversary of our split when it comes (August 28). When we were together, I felt the clock winding down. Apart, I’ve counted up, endlessly up, there’s-no-ceiling up. I look down and happen to notice the date and I think, is this day significant in any way? The answer is the same. I made notations of when I saw him in last year’s calendar, and I had lunch with him on this day, April 2008. It was our 11th date. We only had 42 dates left.