There you stand at eleven o’clock at night.

Organizing your closet.
You always complain how little sleep you have, yet you can’t seem to stop.
You start with your drawers.
Folding pairs of socks together, beater sin square and your underwear likewise.
Squares are perfect shapes, each corner tight and organized.
Yet folding doesn’t help.
He keeps coming in your mind, so I begin on your desk.
Fixing loose papers and bundling pencils with rubber bands. Making your folders all aligned and scooting a plastic bag to the back.
Yet memories are endless and the evidence is still there.
It fell out your folder.
Lying on the floor is a picture of us sitting together on a rock.
“Our Rock”.
So you quickly shuffle it back in and start on your closet. Refolding stacks of shirts, jeans and shorts to become perfect squares.
But once you see, you can’t forget.
Especially when you see the special homecoming.
The dress that showed off your beautiful long legs.
You wore it for him to the dance when you saw him there with another girl. Even though you believed it wasn’t true.
The rumors that had been flying around about them.
The realization hits you.
He was gone.
Even the shirt you hold in your hands, showcasing the beginning is just another shirt. The day when he wanted you to officially be his forever.
When he was so dedicated to you and loved you so much that he told you he would jump in the pond, at the beginning of Fall, just so you would say yes to be his.
His girlfriend.
But that day was over, so you fold up the shirt tightly into a square and go sit on your bed.
The room is organized but your life’s not. And as you sit there all alone all you can do is cry and roll to the side of your bed so that no one will walk in and see you.
Crying is weak.
But you’re not, even though you’ve been doing it more often.
But as you wipe your eyes and life becomes clear again you see an umbrella.
Your school colors.
But it’s not an ordinary one.
That umbrella was there to witness the end of everything.
A snowy day when he called you up and said, “Can you meet me at the bottom of the hill?” and of course you said sure and didn’t think twice about it.
He didn’t say the normal break up words.
But his voice was sad anyways so you thought it had something to do with wrestling practice.
He was passionate about his sports.
You put on you charcoal pea coat with matching gloves and the scarf you got hand made in Germany and grab your school umbrella to help you see through the heavily falling flakes. For the first minute you stand there; all you see is white and all you are thinking about is how you can’t wait for his body heat to warm you.
But then you see a figure walking towards you.
And then he’s there.
You offer him your umbrella to stand under it raising it several inches above your head to accommodate his height, but he declines. He goes to you and says, “The relationship has been tense for a while. We hardly ever see each other. Me being in wrestling. And you with all of your extra-curriculars. And then we’re in different grades so we don’t have classes together.”
Your heart is breaking yet you don’t want him to say the inevitable words, so you blurt them out as if it was your idea.
“I completely understand. We should take a break.”
Not a break a lifetime.
“Yeah” he says, “until things are more organized.” “Yeah,” you say and then you just stand there looking at each other because you don’t know what to do now. “So I’ll see you later” you say with a smile.
You wanted to kiss him on the cheek but between the umbrella and his height, you just don’t! Instead, you just turn around and walk up your hill.
The realization didn’t hit you then, but it definitely was now.
And a flood of tears come back. You take the umbrella out and tear off its cover, and break its metal prong and throw it out.
You will only remember the good times.
Keeping your life organized of only happy things.
But as trash day nears you just put the parts back in a smaller bag and place it in your drawer.
Life is about pain.
You want to keep the memory.
But you also don’t like to be disorganized therefore you know it has to go one day.
But when you’re ready to let go.
On your own time.
Meanwhile you’ll just organize the things you can control.