It's odd that we should part at almost the same time that we had come together.

My nose had failed me earlier but now I can smell the scent of him lingering on my arms, like it always does. What do I do? Put off taking a shower so I can smell him a few hours longer? Or scrub off all traces at once?

The picture above my desk is gone. The clothes and toiletries are gone. The bottle of wine is gone.

But there's still the denim cushion that he hugged and put both hands into the pockets. There's this chair I'm in that he was sitting in just two days ago. There's the table we made out on even before I moved in. There's the bed he shared with me. There's the bathroom he used. The living room. The dining room. The television. The kitchen. The elevator. The door. The car. The porch. The road. The path. The river.

The life.

There's no way to scrub off the traces.

I'll stay unwashed a while more. Just to smell him a little longer.