I wrote you a letter once (upon a time) and in it I explained.

I was angry at you because you insisted on adding vinegar to the boiling water before trying to poach the eggs. I was crying because the crease in your thumb reminded me that someday you will die. I never cashed that check from your mother because she is condescending. When I flushed it—and the hat she knitted you for Christmas—down the toilet I laughed. It is my fault there is a dent in the rear bumper of your car. I backed it into a yellow post in the parking lot of the bank. I was texting while pulling out of the space. I was crying because the water displaced by the ice cubes you dropped into my seltzer reminded me that sometimes there just isn’t enough room. The stain on the rug is from the dog, not the footsteps of the plumber who came to fix the toilet where I flushed the hat and check. The turkeys that visit the yard each day at dusk taught me that love exists in patterns. The quilt on our bed was given to me by the mother of another lover.

I folded each of these sentences between the pages of Great Expectations, its spine already broken. I tried to tie a strand of my hair around the cover but it snapped. All these things I couldn’t tell you, love and fear wrestling in the darkness of my throat. I slid the book back onto the shelf, amid all the quiet in the Intergalactic Library for Introverts.