Zakiya Harris
227 Jackson Circle
Chapel Hill, NC
T-H-E-O-D-O-R-E
How to get over you. An acrostic poem (of sorts).
There isn’t going to be an easy way out.
Try not to run from your ex’s parents in the grocery store a couple of weeks after, even
though they would probably prefer that you did.
There’s no escape. After all, the small town you currently live in is the same small
town you both grew up in. And both you and your ex have been living in said small town
for a few years now.
You can try shielding yourself with the open door of a freezer in the frozen food
section for a temporary fix, if the glass is dirty enough. But eventually you will see his
parents somewhere, and that somewhere may turn out to be the canned food aisle. So
put on your best “It’s okay, I’m still fabulous” smile and shrug contently when Mr. Haber
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makes a comment that leads you to believe he’s been led to believe that the breakup
was mutual. You silently thank your ex in your head for leaving you with that much,
because you know it wasn’t. You know that he said that you were always up and down.
And there was too much down. When it was good, it was handholding and kisses, but
when it wasn’t, it was curses and headaches.
But that doesn’t really matter, not in the canned food aisle. “Everything happens
for a reason, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Haber will say. And when she hugs you tightly, sending a
few cans of stewed tomatoes sailing to the floor with her purse, hug her back. Because
this is probably the closest you’re ever going to get to him for a long, long time.
Hold off on asking yourself “when.”
Maybe it was when you were watching the news and you made an insensitive comment
about veterans. Maybe it was when you made fun of his childhood fear of rocking
chairs. Maybe it was when you said you hated cats. Maybe it was when you two ran into
CVS to pick up some ranch dip to watch the game and you accidentally cut an old lady
in line. Maybe it was when you weren’t there for him when his little brother passed,
because you didn’t know the proper words to say to “leukemia.” Maybe it was when you
burnt the last piece of cinnamon toast. Maybe it was when you wanted more than you
could give.
Exercise.
As reality sets in, you’re most likely going to think it’s a good idea to drown yourself in
ballads by Phil Collins and Boyz II Men and Bryan Adams. It’s not.
You’ll just want to cry and eat things, then cry and eat some more. And once you
realize that you’re not going to stop eating, you’ll realize you’re going to have to start
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working out again. But the only gym you know of in your town is a mere minute away
from his place, and you’re afraid that he’ll see your parents’ hand-me-down Subaru
parked outside. He’ll remember, of course, how you always hated working out alone,
and suspect that because you are alone you must be falling out of shape due to your
spiraling depression.
Pretend you’re a pro when you walk into the gym, whose manager feels that
inundating its patrons with the top forty at full blast will enhance their physical stamina.
And try not to make it obvious that you’re terrified your shoelace will get stuck in the
treadmill when you first set foot on it. The kind of exercise you know is 7 p.m. jogs with
your ex on the Farmington Canal. This kind of exercise—the kind when the ground runs
away from you—you don’t know. You’re used to keeping pace by the sound of Nikes
hitting pavement, not the harsh whir of a rubber belt that you’re sure is thirsty for your
blood.
When you’re done working out, don’t forget to stretch to prevent later discomfort.
And when you pull out of the parking lot, take the long way home to avoid driving past
his parents’ house. He’s probably not home, but you don’t want to have to fight the urge
to confirm that with a sideways glance.
Organize, organize, organize.
Get your shit together. Manage your time. Put more energy in your copyediting job. It’ll
earn you extra points with your boss when she realizes how many drafts you’ve been
able to read through in the span of one morning. Maybe she’ll give you a raise. She’s a
bitch, though, so she probably won’t.
More importantly, focusing on your work will give you an excuse to remain in your
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swivel chair a few moments longer instead of running from your cubicle to the source of
ecstatic screams. When you do get there, it’s ten minutes after everyone else has.
That’s okay, though, because after you’ve babbled something incoherent about your
fake unawareness, Holly Berger doesn’t mind telling the story again. She’s engaged.
Perform the obligatory squeal ‘n’ jump at her news in order to hide the jealousy
that seethes beneath the surface. Ask “when” but then tune out her answer completely,
because you’re too busy trying to restrain from throwing the nearest stapler at her. (It’s
probably a good decision that you don’t, because it was Marge’s stapler, and you know
how Marge gets when it comes to her things. That’s why she labels them in rigid block
letters.)
Later on, while your eyes skim pages and pages of instructions explaining how to
use a top of the line weed whacker, consider going home sick.
Delete.
Delete. Everything. Especially his phone number. Just think of all those times you’ve
been out at a bar, drinking your face and your little high heels off, and you see a guy
who looks remotely like your ex.
(Actually, the next day, when you’ve finally washed your hair and your bathroom
rug and you’re staring at the photo that your friends begged you not to beg him to take
because he wasn’t all that hot, the more sober version of you realizes the stranger
doesn’t look anything like him. His nose is too big, his hair isn’t wavy enough, he would
never wear pants that tight in the crotch. Etc, etc.)
Anyways, think of all those times when you’re gone out of your mind, partly off of
a few Jack and Cokes but mostly off of self-deprecation, and you see a guy who you
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drunkenly take to be your ex’s twin. And after you take the photo with the supposed
carbon copy, you decide you want to talk to the original himself. So you call him.
Your ex doesn’t answer. The logical side of you tells you that he’s probably
working hard on an assignment that Pratt Technical Institute assigned him, or spending
time with his family, or—here’s the most obvious one—sleeping. But your inebriation
convinces you otherwise. Surely, he’s having the time of his life singing eighties rock
ballads driving around town with a girl who looks like Olivia Newton-John post-slutty
carnival transformation. Or Olivia Pope from Scandal. Or Olivia Munn.
The upside is that you only leave one drunken voicemail. The downside is that in
this one drunken voicemail, you detail everything that has brought you to this pathetic
moment in time. How you can’t fall asleep without him being three centimeters away
from you, hearing his light breaths mask the plurp of your drippy faucet in the bathroom.
How you miss kissing the smell of Irish Spring Soap off of his not quite clean-shaven
neck after he’s showered. How you still haven’t admitted to your mother that after nearly
two long years, you ex rolled over in bed one day, touched your face, and finally told
you that you were no longer The One.
(This last one is especially painful, because your mom had been convinced that
you two were perfect for one another when she found out that he, like you, used to eat
Kleenex as a toddler. This had sealed the issue for you, too, along with your mutual
keenness for bell peppers.)
Anyway, your ex probably doesn’t really want to hear any of this. This is exactly
what he couldn’t stand—your “sometimes-y clinginess”—and after confessing to dead
air things that you haven’t even openly confessed to yourself yet, you hang up.
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Suddenly, surrounded by a mass of sweaty and horny drinkers, you feel alone.
The night has crusted over into something dry. Stale, even. It’s only been a month but
most of your friends have given up on trying to rescue you from the depths of the black
hole that is breakup. They’re around somewhere, off trying to milk free drinks off a man
who could lift the five of you up with one arm, no problem. You ignore them all later on
when they ask you if you had a good time and make a mental note to find new best
friends in the morning.
And that’s all because you didn’t delete his number.
Omit particular songs from your listening regiment.
That means you’re going to have to get rid of that beloved Celine Dion smash hit “It’s All
Coming Back to me Now,” as well as the image forever planted in your mind of him
delivering it to you falsetto-style that night you were driving around town. You were
killing time before going into New Haven for the Friday Night Fear Feature, which was
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You hadn’t seen it since your dad had mistakenly taken
you when you were little; apparently he had underestimated the damaging effects of a
mass of mobile gelatin upon a five year-old brain. Your ex had never seen it.
It was the first time you two had ever hung out. You sort of knew him back in
high school, but for some reason you hadn’t really talked until you both graduated from
college, at a mutual friend’s party. You’d both moved back home after finishing school,
to get your lives figured out. At the end of the night, before you’d helped your friend
rinse out the brown beer bottles on your friend’s kitchen table, he’d asked you out.
And there you were, a week later. You could only see half of his face when he
was singing and driving, because that’s how riding shotgun goes, but you were sure that
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the other half of his face that you couldn’t see was just as cute, if not cuter, than the half
that you could.
Also be sure to skip the first fifteen seconds of “More than a Feeling.” After you
two got more serious, your ex always hummed the opening notes to this whenever he
picked you up. It was playing on your first “official” date, which was a hiking trip up
Sleeping Giant. (Balancing steering the wheel with air-guitaring was his idea of pregaming, since he never liked alcohol much. Which, might I add, makes leaving drunken
voicemails that much more problematic). Avoid the guitar breaks of “More than a
Feeling,” too, when the lead singer’s voice rises higher and higher until it blends with the
succeeding guitar note and both are indistinguishable from the other, living together in
shrill, harmonic bliss. Your ex used to screech this part, too.
Actually, come to think about it, avoid this song completely. It’s not worth the 4:45
of hurt that comes along with it.
Rebound…
Let’s say that it has gotten around town that you and your ex have called it quits, and
let’s say that the barista at Starbucks has had a bit of a crush on you since last
December. Let’s say his name is Will, a strapping twenty-something who has a stronger
jaw-line than your ex and a few inches on him, too. While Will may seem promising as
he heats up your cinnamon pecan scone, and while you probably find it endearing that
he seems genuinely interested in your day whenever you ask for a double-shot of
espresso, don’t believe it when you try to convince yourself that Will is perfect and that
your ex was not. You are your biggest enemy these days. Will is the R-word, and you
and him both know it. So don’t even try to be coy when he tells you you’re looking
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exceptionally lovely one particular morning. And don’t think you’re part of some great
coffee shop romance when you finally give him your number via a brown napkin.
Because it will be apparent on your first and (last date) that Will is not going to be The
One. You’ll just wish that you’d found this out as quickly with your ex as you did with
Will. You’ll wonder, What was the point?
So when the Rebound doesn’t work,
…return his things.
Even the purple plaid flannel shirt that you love so much. Especially the Walking
Dead t-shirt that you somehow ended up wearing the morning you told him you loved
him for the first time. He hadn’t said it back, but at the time he’d traced a heart on the
small of your back with his index finger and you’d known he hadn’t been ready to
articulate his feelings just yet. He would be ready a few weeks later, but that didn’t stop
you from verbalizing your frustration that it took him so long.
Even though you still wear the Walking Dead t-shirt when you’re feeling like crap,
and/or when AMC is having a marathon, you’re better off not having it. It’s too big for
you, anyway. Plus, it’s not really your ex’s. Someone had left it in a classroom, or
something. But before you could ask if he had washed it before wearing it and claiming
it as his, his hand was claiming you, slipping beneath the zombies and grabbing your
heart from your chest and suddenly...suddenly you didn’t give a damn where the shirt
came from. It could have been stolen off a Goodwill truck for all you cared; it was his
shirt then, and then yours, and that was all that mattered.
Put this shirt and the flannel shirt, along with all the other clothes that belonged to
him, in a big brown box. Avoid labeling it “Theodore’s Stuff” because that will just feel
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like too much of a cliché. On your way out the door, remember the Croc slippers that
you always made fun of him for wearing. (Ignore the fact that you’ve tried them on
before, and you secretly agree that walking in them is like treading on pillows spun from
Egyptian cotton.) Stick those Crocs in there, too, for good measure.
Ease into something new.
Maybe, nearly six months later, you two are on somewhat okay terms. His stuff has
been returned. You’re no longer binge eating (and drinking), and you and the barista
have agreed to be good friends (although you’ve found another coffee shop to frequent,
just to be safe). Your mom is trying to set you up with a coworker’s son, and you’re even
considering taking her up on it.
With the aid of a Google search and a wrench that the previous tenant left in the
closet, try fixing that leaky faucet that’s been driving you crazy. When this doesn’t work,
break down and ask your apartment’s supervisor to send someone out to fix it. There
are some battles that you’re meant to lose. Fixing things is one of them.
Take a trip instead. Go into Boston with nothing but a wristwatch and some
money. Leave your phone at home. He’s not going to call, but that’s kind of okay.