Tyler gave me this before he went back to Michigan last fall. He didn't say much, just that he'd found it in the back of his closet and it had never been used. He didn't tell me to write anything, so it just sat around for a while until I got an itch one night when I couldn't sleep. He never asked what I was writing. I think he just knew. I never answered anyone who asked anyway.

"What are you writing?"

"Just little things."

"What are you writing?"

"Nothing."

What are you what are you what are you...?

I don't know.
(Memories?)

I don't know. Memories can't sting and cut like a blade, though. They can't scald and burn away everything I am.

(More than memories?)

All that is left of us.

That is when the words came. When they howled in your ears and when all of this began. Tyler had always known you'd need them. He'd known that they would be big enough to hold onto, until there was no reason left to hang on.

But it isn't time for that yet.