for kyle, who will never read this

It's as if I am searching for something I’d hidden from myself: closet doors sprawled, desk drawers gawking, mocking my loss.

You wrote a letter to me in 2001, in your smudged black pen – barely legible handwriting. It isn’t about what it said, it’s about what it meant. You sealed it in a Ziplock bag and left it at the corner of Nutmeg and Caraway. It was raining and you called my house phone. My mother answered and you asked for me. She reluctantly passed the phone. It was dinner time; she hated callers during supper.

All you said was “Look under the peach tree in Sara Messina’s lawn.”

I galloped down the block. I read the letter. Like I said, I have forgotten its contents but I was speaking to Jeannie tonight about you and it popped into my head.

I stored everything we’d ever exchanged in that Ziplock bag. Pictures drawn, maps for the ideal future, poems with titles spelt incorrectly. Everything you ever did was charming to me. You said “We’re super cats! This is us:” and drew a picture of two white cats with bright blue eyes. You cut out cardboard into a small rectangle and wrote The Emotion Card on it. You wanted me to be more open with my emotions.

It is years later now. I could call you, but I like to live in the memory better. If I called and spoke to you, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d want to get nostalgic and talk about Horatio the Peacock or the night we ran out of gas in the village and slept on the dock of the polluted lake. Even when I go home sometimes, we get together and go to the rocks. We used to count fish jumping in the lake off those rocks; you always hated reminiscing.

Rummaging through my desk drawers, used more for storage than normal desk drawer purposes, all I found was an old broken cell phone (a little juice left in it), a lock that goes to a key I’ve lost, and a blue ceramic hippo you first gave me when I moved to Brooklyn. You told me it had no particular sentimental value, just that you thought I’d like it. I did.

I put it on top of my desk and gave up on searching for the Ziplock bag. Maybe I’ll find it in my parent’s house this upcoming Christmas, but I’m wondering if I should continue on with this. I’ll just call you and receive a vacant response.

Other things I found while not finding you:

Two dollar bills
A slice of cardboard with my first impressions of Denver written on it
Co90
Spokes drafts
Lysistratosfear
Sorencified
Tuja and zintane
Orange OM bracelet from India
Raspberry beret