if you (1)

What will impede me the most if you leave me
Is that you will have all of me—
The whole story,
Every page—because you know me the best, whether you know it or not—

—And you will go out
Into the deserts,
And talk of me as if I was water;
Or you will hike through the wilderness and up the sides of mountains,
And talk of me as a heavy pack, or a lone wolf;
Or you will wander urban,
And make me out to be one of the thousands of lights blazing;
Or you will be out at sea,
Afloat above the Marinas Trench,
And say that you wish you had solid unmoving earth to stand on, and remember me out loud;
Or you will stand on flat ground,
And remark to whomever is next to you that you loved a stormcloud just like that one once,
Until it yielded lightning that struck your house;
Or you will tell your next partner-in-crime that you know you're looking for an ancient locked box because you found it once,
And lost it,
And you can't remember if it was stolen or just vanished on its own like in all those magic stories they tell.
All these things and more, you will remember me as,
But never all at once,
And never the same thing twice,

And no one else
Will have the whole story,
Will have all of me,
But you,
And if you remember that you have and you know everything of me,
You will keep it in your pocket forever.

And it will kill me that no one will ask me, but they won't be able to wait for your stories. Even if they are good ones.
It will kill me that I gave you a gift that you can never return or exchange.

I will grasp at ghosts and put them together,
And you will be the one with the solid story
Softly tumbling around in your pocket,
And your hand the only one to ever touch it.

–Dana Winter