A Note About                            

Your room, lined with paint bottles
and paint brushes and paint drops
on fabric, carpet, desks, your desk,
made you                                        , but I thought
its               was just like you,                  and               ,
self-effacing. When they left, I looked at you,
then away, so that                               —which worked.
I opened my mouth, wheezing, and you heard                  . I
grabbed my throat, trying to squeeze                    out with nails and
grit, but                    aren’t in throats. They’re in                 , viscera, tubes and          . You grabbed a
pencil—it had fallen into cheap, acrylic paint, which        noticed. You                      ed it into my                 !
Do you remember that? Do you? It was          years ago, now, so maybe you do. Maybe you can
remember my face for me. I think it was                  , but relieved. If it was, you                           tell me. If, as I
took the pencil and handed you a sheet—a piece of construction paper                   your ground,
bright and           and distasteful that said “Today, I wanted to                      , but I was afraid. What
              ,          ?” —and I                   then you                           tell me about that.