they asked what i remembered and felt of your name
i wasn't entirely sure of how i was meant to tell what was left of it, when i've thumbed it to my palm and left it to bruise
i turned up empty-handed, but i found it once again in the flowers pressed into my journals
i spoke in foreign tongues around you, perhaps; maybe it was my fault for forgetting that i am only a working man beneath a house of cards, and maybe, when my day's work is done, i could be the child you would thumb into your palm and leave to bruise
i looked around the room never finding it on my tongue or in my hand in search of it once more, and i found it again between mismatched laundry
cut of the same cloth; never blended, frayed welts and all, still worn every day in discord
i found it once more in the tide that swelled only to draw back just before it reached the shore, just past the glass panes
"loosely, distantly, fondly."
was all i had said, and of course, it was not understood; i was quite used to speaking in dead languages for such a long time that i had equated the ache in my palm, and the hunger in my stomach to understanding