her hoodie still hangs on the back of my door

Untitled | Audrey Plague | Photograph

her hoodie still hangs on the back of my door by Deckard Enright

her hoodie still hangs on the back of my bedroom door.

the cream colored one, plain, but with memories sown into ever seam, and tucked into every pocket, the kind of memories that are sickly sweet. you wish to go back, but you can’t, and wouldn’t if you could.

over the summer i went out to my family’s patio with a stolen cigarette lighter, my intensions set on watching it burn, not out of some deep hatred for her, more out of a desire to put out the last of her physical presence in my life. after the wind put out the flame three times before i could go through with the deed, i called it a day and went back outside, dragging the cursed object behind me like a ball and chain and tossing the lighter away, for i wouldn’t be needing it. i did not throw the hoodie out. as of now it’s hung on a hook on my door, buried under  various other hoodies and jackets i’ve cycled through in the past months. as i scrawl, i can see its off-white sleeve staring me down from below layers and layers of sweatshirts and bath towels and various other things, telling me what it knows. i know if i went over there, even after several wash cycles, i’d still be able to smell her cluttered room, filled with used cups i would beg her to put away before they got moldy. if i focused, i’d be able to see the posters on her walls. i’d be able to taste the ice cream we ate at prom and the vomit i spat up in her bathroom at 5am the morning after. i’d be able to hear her brother playing a mindless video game from somewhere else in the house while in the locked confines of her bedroom she and i learned what our bodies were for. 

i’m looking at the hoodie right now. by any means, i could stand up right now and throw it away and be done with it, but i don’t, and have chosen not to every second i’ve spent in this room for the past year. in a way i could phrase it that doesn’t involve me having to take a deep dive into my psyche, i suppose some malevolent spirit of wickedness and crappy exes has decided that this hoodie will stay firmly hooked in my room for the rest of my life, or until my mother finds it and wonders where it came from.

i hope she misses it. i hope she’s cold without it.