Worlds a-part - Tommy Dixon

I still scroll through old photos. Read old texts. Rip the stitches open. I kept the glass ice cream jar with the folded sticky notes and the postcard from Tofino and the anklets we wove on the warm and windy balcony in Cinque Terre. I marvel at how alien that version of me now feels. I still listen to those folk songs we found. I still make the same jokes—under my breath—but think “Ah you would’ve thought that was funny”. I still keep our language alive. Although it’s rusty now. I’m out of practice. It’s like I can’t let myself forget. It’s like I want to remember everything. Our lives were wound together so neatly at school. Then, with the sunshine, the thaw of the earth, and the bursts of pink buds growing on the trees, the last semester ended1. And there were just loose ends, fraying in our fingers, like twine. I told myself we couldn’t grow together, so we grew apart. It’s my fault for thinking love is like Fall in southern Ontario—perfect for a moment, before it turns right into

I still scroll through old photos. Read old texts. Rip the stitches open. I kept the glass ice cream jar with the folded sticky notes and the postcard from Tofino and the anklets we wove on the warm and windy balcony in Cinque Terre. I marvel at how alien that version of me now feels. I still listen to those folk songs we found. I still make the same jokes—under my breath—but think “Ah you would’ve thought that was funny”. I still keep our language alive. Although it’s rusty now. I’m out of practice. It’s like I can’t let myself forget. It’s like I want to remember everything. Our lives were w