Closure
He knew she was right and I knew it too. None of it was any easier because she was right.
So I picked it up and took it. Then I just walked away. It would be years, it had to be years, until I looked at it again. And all of that it sat there with me. I walked away, the whole ten yards I could go. She left and went miles. And it sat here with me. It was so close and I never opened it. I knew what was in it. I could see its outline in the envelope and I could see the shade on her finger. That was all. That was all I needed for years.
Now, when it is not next to me I need to see it. I need to finally open it. Hold that in my hand, like I used to hold her hand. I need to hold it like she wanted me to hold her hand while I was reading the letter. Knowing what it meant, from the shape pressed into the envelope as it sat in her back pocket, her sitting on it, I never wanted to know what it said. At least I didn’t for all those years that it was locked up with me. Now when I can’t just reach out and grab it, I need it… I need to know what it said: the why of what it meant.
Now that I am here, someplace new with no memories of her. Now I need to know what she said; why she meant it. Here, where there are no memories of her. Here where I can’t see things that remind me of what she was like before; I need to see what she was like then: just that moment.
If I go back I know I will not want to read it. There the reminders of her will keep me from believing what it says. There she never changed, at least not for me. There I changed and now I have changed back. There she said… Here the earth has rooted me and I have finally changed. And I can go back to before. Only now can I go through it and go on. That envelope: without it I need to go on my own way. I will write the letter myself. I will finally take off my ring and put it with my words put in her mouth.
The why, her why, doesn’t matter at this point. My why will do, and my ring will seal it.
