Pocketed Change

They knock against each other,

clanking and jingling with every step,

their combined weight pulling me down until

I become one with the funeral home’s jaded carpet floor.

I pull one out—

a letter I should have written to you—

and the never-formed words stare at me in shame.

I pull out another,

this time it is that thank you that

my mouth,

in its rushed excitement,

forgot to give to you.

This time, out comes a bundle,

a group of emails I

never sent to you because I

was “too busy”.

But I’m not “too busy” to be

here, gazing at your empty face.

Murmurs flitter up to my ears like

butterflies, innocent and true, yet

still classified as pests. Yes,

I am the

one who he held dear. I am the

girl he treated as his biological daughter. I am the

best in that clique labeled “friends”. I am all these things

and I am also

the one who holds yearfuls—

not handfuls—of lost

change,

of expired, of devalued, of

pocketed change.

There is no machine

on this planet that can

exchange my

pocketed change

for tangible moments of what

should have been

with someone who deserved

all of the what wases and

all of the what could have beens and

all of the what should have beens

and more;

for, if such a machine did

exist, I would have run it past its limits

ages ago, exchanging my

pocketed change

for all of the unborn time spent between us.