Covid has me cleaning out closets and getting rid of old baggage. A cathartic reorganization of past memories that no longer serve me. Ass kicking my way down memory lane, cherry picking what to hold on to and what to let go. 

I highly recommend. 

To the only man to ever break my heart: I’m sorry I took scissors to your red soccer championship jacket. 

It was a nice jacket. 

I should have kept it. 

P.S. The rest of your athletic garments are in the hands of the less fortunate. I hope the hot stench of your deceit keeps them toasty at night.

To the man whose heart I left crushed in the kitchen of the house he bought to grow our family: I was twenty-one. Too young for a family. Too young for a house. 

I would like my parent’s brand new, king-sized mattress back. It was the offering of a guilty conscious, and we both know that guilt faded with the leather motorcycle suit you returned to the store rather than my closet. 

P.S. I still miss that old Victorian. 

To the man who left me crying on his couch in the middle of the night to go party with his friends: You owe me money. A dollar for every tear pried from my body through your judgement, your cruelty, your insecurities. The exact total  $3,564.  

P.S. You need therapy. 

To the man who sat next to me in first year English: Please stop haunting my memories. I apologize for flirting you into making me a Valentine’s Day present and then never speaking to you again. I no longer want to see the hope in your eyes as you hand me that gift bag, or imagine the amount of time it took to create and decorate thirty-seven miniature origami cranes. I want to forget the deeply personal words of the poem you wrote for my callous, selfish heart. 

Enough is enough.

P.S. I kept the cranes. 

To the man who ordered me to fold his laundry: I should have strewn your underwear across the front lawn of Fountain Hall. Pushed them through the garburator. Rewashed them in the toilet.  

I should not have folded the laundry. You should not have apologized, all those years later. 

P.S. It’s hard to despise a man who knows how to make an apology. 

To the man who will hold my heart: tiptoe carefully ‘round those rips and tears. Keep your scissors locked and your mattress soft. Addict me with kindness. 

I’m skittish about laundry. Love poems will forever make me cringe. Don’t ask about the origami cranes under my bed, and I won’t pry the skeletons from your closet. 

Remind me not to be selfish and callous. 

Remind yourself not to say things you don’t mean. 

Apologize early and often. Don’t let me pick fights. 

Tell me I’m pretty. 

Say “I love you” first. 

Don’t leave stale dish water in the sink. 

Tell me I’m pretty again. 

P.S. Tulips are my favourite.