Split Juliana Chang

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Once, at the airport my suitcase came down the baggage carousel burst open, two halves split open like a tangerine. I saw my favorite dress tumble down the rubber tracks turning black, other items scattered too. Face burning, I gathered what I could and left for home. It is important to remember: nothing felt gone that day. No suitcase morphed shape to show the changing of its contents, my mind named no single thing to find. It was only days later, when I reached for a bracelet, or maybe a lover’s shirt, only to find it missing, that the loss began. I don’t mean the things. I mean the safety of knowing what I do and do not have, the time before a search for old earrings would leave my heart racing, trying to remember if it had been in a piece of luggage I packed four months ago: what I must find becomes what I must forget all at once. It is a strange kind of ache to not remember what you have lost. I don’t mean the things. That first poem was just a letter that never got sent. Has it been days or years since I’ve written to you— would either of us know?