10: she asks to hold your hand. your tongue disappears and you comply. she swings you like a chain every now and then to remind you that you are hers.

9: you slide into the passenger seat. everything smells like perfume and you feel it stinging, percolating through the tiny holes in your skin. she tells you that you look different and doesn’t explain. you feel dirty for the rest of the night.

8: she’s always typing. no matter what you say, how much you beg, how close to the edge you are. three dots bouncing, threatening to get too close, to push you down. she is typing. when she finally messages, you wish she hadn’t.

7: she’s perfect. she’s small. you carry her on your back once and she wraps her arms around your neck and rests her chin in your hair. she wears soft sweaters that show her stomach.

6: every time you blink, you’re scared she will leave. and she does.

5: you share the same taste in food. you wear matching sneakers and you accidentally say the same things. you met on accident. your friend was her friend and the pieces all fell together, even though some of them didn’t fit. you gave her a ring and she lost it. then you gave her a piece of yourself.

4: she liked your writing. she told you she liked it once and you were indebted. there was nothing you needed more than praise. you were sinking and she had a rope – it didn’t matter if it was thin and itchy. sometimes she would threaten to let go. sometimes you wanted her to.

3: she would say good morning to you and folded your clothes into little squares.

2: she was the kind of girl that people want to write poems about. but she would never
read them.

1: she spoke to you like a human. you forgot what that felt like. late night texts were routine. she had to move away, to find herself. she threw her phone into a lake but not before telling you she’d miss you. you thought she was dead until she flickered onto your television screen, right under the word *missing* and above her mother’s cell phone number.

0: you never talked about her. she looked plastic in her photographs but her hugs were warm. you had a space in your closet for her shoes.