The Storage of Memory by Beatrix P. Ladypratt

When you told me you didn’t want me anymore,

I was fine with that,

Because that’s how it always goes.

Why hold onto something that you never truly wanted?

Your friends would give me looks

Which I always returned.

Whatever you told them,

I didn’t care.

No, I said I didn’t care,

But I did.

I wanted you to still want me.

But,

When your new love gave me those same looks,

I would only smile,

Because that meant that what we had was special.

It meant you truly enjoyed the time we had.

The way you’d brush away my hair,

Bruise my thighs,

Tell me I was special.

But the telling didn’t make it true.

It was your new love who did.

So keep everything we shared.

I don’t need it.

I’ve got the memories I can use

Against your new love.

Beatrix P. Ladypratt is a recent graduate of the Vanderbilt University MFA program. She has been published in Cicada, Slow Trains, and Liquid Imagination. Her first chapbook, Collections of Hardships Endured, will appear in 2012.