By Maria
I see the walls have changed. The paint around the windows isn’t blue anymore, like the sky, like the sea, like the favourite colour that you always used too much of. It’s yellow now, and it shines less, but it’s bold. It doesn’t mix in with anything else anymore, it sits proudly in the midst of all the boring white clay. The wood is still flaky, and the glass is dirty and broken, not completely transparent now. I can’t see inside like I used to be able to, like I used to have the right to. I’m hoping you can’t either. I hold the keys in my hand, the copy you made for me without asking for anything in exchange. But they don’t seem to fit into the lock. I try again, and again, and again, until it occurs to me that it’s different. It doesn’t fit because it isn’t supposed to. It’s different, like everything else, like the paint, like the windowpanes, like our friends, like music, like your smile and like your hair and like us. But I like your hair and I like us. I like it when I make you laugh, and I like it when we were alone and I put my head on your shoulder and you didn’t pull away. I like it when we danced, and I told you and you said it was fine. I like it when we didn’t ignore each other and when I wasn’t afraid of talking to you. I like it when I knew I was going to see you the next day over and over again until always. I like it when we act like it’s the same because its easier to change the lock and hope the other doesn’t notice than saying it’s over. I like that you never gave me my key back and that I’ll never ask for it. I like it because I want to imagine you think of me every time you see it, because it means you’ve not forgotten me. I like it because I don’t know what I am anymore but it’s simpler when I know the address is still the same and you still remain.