The Sweater

I loved that sweater.

Everything about it. Perfect shade of blue, hint of green. And how it smelled of her.

I recently read how the masculine animal is more attracted and aroused by the natural scent of a woman* (* dispense with the Al Pacino jokes, you heathens, and do your worst) than by contrived perfume manipulation.

And scent is the most unexpected and dominant characteristic of my memory of her.

Please forgive my rambling. Love tends to blind me to proper construction. And too often reason as well. Damn you, love. You strive to deny me both Pulitzer and happiness.

I could go on ad nauseum. For it is so easy to focus on the symbol rather than the woman. Symbols conveniently quantify all-consuming emotion into tolerable allotment. Symbols define as required, do not require compromise, nor do they force confrontation.

Symbols enable others to con us into things we do not need and can ill afford.

I miss her, my heart aches, and rarely does a day go by where I manage to escape unreminded.

It has been years gone by. I regret how that sweater - amongst her other possessions - had been left behind in long forgotten dresser in closed room and chapter.

And yet to cling to it would be to cling to a symbol, and not the breasts and the woman that it once contained.

Perhaps I need to get out more.

.