for You

I've been thinking about you less, lately. It used to be I couldn't get away from you. Everywhere we had been, the things we'd talked about, all of these became apparitions of you. Not the you I could call and speak with today, of course, but the you burned into my memory; the you that might have never existed outside my imagination.

Today, it is easier. I sit on my roof without thinking of the first night we spent here. Without being bombarded by sensation-- scent, touch, taste--that my memory now links to you. I go to that same cafe, even have the same tired conversations with our same old friends (the ones I have now inherited).

I'm moving away, now. While packing up my things, I came across the sweater I had given you that night. Our time together has become so much simpler, so much tidier with the passage of time. You become less you, and more a foil to my own character with each day that passes. You have surrendered your limitless complexity so that you might fit more neatly into my life story. This is called perspective.

I wonder if I have become the same for you. We were only together for a short time, and yet the words we shared were true. So, what have I become to mean for you?