Sweater

- Betwixt: Phase II - Poem VI -

Do you still wear it and feel its threads in the afterglow?

The sweater I left at your place when things were slow,

The sleeves still smell of my detergent rain,

Of our laughter stitched into quiet pain,

Do you wear it when our love feels too thin?

And think about the nights where I took it off to kiss you, then

Do your fingers drift to that silver ring?

The one I gave you on your birthday, that meant everything,

It gleamed like hope on your guitar-scarred hands,

A vow we carved into the world’s shifting sands,

When did you know for sure you’d never put it back on?

Does it sit in the back of a drawer, haunted by our memories so fond?

Where are our pictures, the gifts you kept?

The notes I wrote you silently while you slept,

Are they burned or buried in a box somewhere in shame?

Do they whisper my half-spoken name?

Did you tear our lives out by a thread?

Or do you lie with them curled up at the foot of your bed?

I imagine you, just passing through,

In that old 151 café with nothing to do,

Someone’ll laugh and you’ll hear me,

A flicker caught between longing and reverie,

Is my ghost in the hoodie you never wear?

Or is my memory just dust in forgotten air?

Do you still hum our favorite song?

The one you wrote about me, that I listened to all night long?

The rhythm stitched our youth to grace,

Do its echoes still sear your new place?

Did your love for me just drift and sever?

Or do you miss me now and then—for forever?

What will you say if your new guy finds them in the back of that drawer?

Will you recall all of our lives before our hearts tore?

I don’t need answers, but I can’t help but want them,

You were my one, my only, my best friend,

I remember the nights we listened to Holly Humberstone,

While we drove into the moonlight beside lit neon cones

So if you find that sweater somewhere near,

Pull it close and hold me here,

Let the fabric tell you what I couldn’t say,

“Love doesn’t just end, I’ll be here to stay”