Not So Much Like Stamps

I guess I'd have to say...Bedrooms.
How?
Not so much like stamps in a book
or
Thimbles in a box
More like film canisters in the attic.


Have a favorite?
Many. Most.
There was one
that looked like a textbook
the way all of his photos were perpendicular and parallel and pasted tightly to the walls.
The corners of my canvas always curls
and are usually stained with coffee rings.
I've never been good at sticking things
to the wall.
I spent only one night there
under the purple light he had over his headboard.
He was an artist
-no. He was an art major.

He loved me methodically
   and then maliciously when he wanted nothing to do with me.
His roommates pretend they don't recognize me.
He had such bad tastes in movies.
Fucking Nickleback was on his Ipod.
He had an Ipod.
He had such a bad taste.
But I slept as if I were dead on his pillow.


And?
And, there's one that's the color of wax
sunbleached cotton
and honey gone bad.
I lay there some Sunday mornings
not able to scrape my eyes off his popcorn ceiling.
I just suspend in smeared bloodless dandelion.
I feel like an allergy.
There are messes in that room that have been there since the first day I came over.


How long?
I don't like to talk about that.
There are yearbooks
from April. Because I remember when he snuck into his parent's late at night.
I waited in the truck
in the middle of the street
in the middle of the night
in the middle of...all of it.
He brought back these yearbooks to show me
proof
he really didn't have braces.
And they're still laying on his floor.
They're still there?
Who am I to judge? I'm still there too. Like hay fever.


Another one.
There's this one
with Christmas lights.
....and?
I want this one.
You know I hate winter.
I dislike the layers, shirts over shirts and coats and scarves, mittens. Skin needs to inhale and it can't when it's so...brumal, and how dry the skin around my fingernails gets, I peel back the layers. Stick it in my mouth.
Suck.
But I probably could have left my car running for days.


What's that got to do with anything?
Everything. There's no pollinosis. It's just too cold.
But never mind, tell me, what do you collect?