small monuments

She listed her lovers on a yellow legal pad in pencil. The wild ones and the fearful, those she had to teach and those that taught her. Those who clung and the ones who kept a frightening distance. She drew a star next to those that stayed. The ones who left--gathering her sheets around themselves like burqas, like cloaks, only to drifting down through the floor and out through the door, leaving a painted trail through her home--those names she slowly crossed off.

“There’s no such thing as remorse,” she said and hands you the note.