What They Meant to Keep
She asked how I knew so many words: climb, swallow, floorboard, forever, window, trash. I told her I had done a lot of listening, found traces of what people had left behind, what they didn’t mean to drop, what they meant to keep: sequence, milk, choke, elbow, floss, devotion.
Later, I said the thing about words is that when they disappear you can still remember. She said the thing about remembering is that you’re bound to forget.
Love this.