M&Ms

Small ones, round ones, big ones, oval ones, colors, all pink, Christmas themed, I buy them all. I buy them quietly and hide them in my room and one by one they disappear. I buy M&M's like a drug. My good friends know that I'm never without them, and my best friends know that they can tell how I'm feeling by how many I've eaten. I keep bags of them in my bedroom in a wicker basket an old boyfriend once gave me. Poetic, isn't it? Obviously and disgustingly poetic. Another disgusting habit is keeping everything that once made me happy. That means old postcards, letters, and ticket stubs, but it also means acorns John once left in my pocket when I wasn't looking and found later to just think of him and smile all over my pretty fucking face. Cute? Sweet? Gross. So gross. Masochistic even.

I have all sorts of things all over the place, not even just in Knoxville, but in Nashville, too. The bones of my failed relationships are degrading all over Tennessee. I have birthday cards, love notes, letters, freaking fall leaves. I have gifts, books, and yarn from scarves never made. You name it; I've got it. I even still find small pieces of relationship hidden in my room: on post-its in books or inside boxes. When I finally feel like they have all been found and appropriately dealt with, I find a card addressed to my old room's address and signed, "yours." This is exactly why I am never without the colorful, small, big, oblong, or round, perfect, necessary, M&M.