Coat of Letting Go, A Jacket for Freedom (Poem)

I once had a coat, a hoodless hoodie of sorts.

I let her wear it because it was cold.

She gladly accepted because it was cold; I could put up with the cold better than her

Though she could probably put up with life better than me.

She gave it back afterwards and thanked me for my kindness.

I loved her and held on too long.

But how do we define these things?

What's too long and what's not long enough?

When I wanted to think of her, I simply wore the coat

And I wore it often. It became my go-to jacket of choice.

When things didn't work out at first those many years ago

But only a year before I let her wear the coat, or less even,

I became lost and wanted to die.

That moment of losing the will to live was more about me than her

And it took me a long time, or so it seemed then, to learn how to want to live for me.

It's been so long since then, since that afternoon when I wanted to end it all.

Her wearing the coat seemed a beacon in the night to my young self

I was only 17 then, so long ago it seems,

A lifetime and yesterday at the same time.

I've been there since, the place of wanting to die, though not as bad, if one can measure these things,

And not for as long, or as intense or as close as I was to it then,

The pain that I felt would surface in fits, though now it's a dull memory,

A nostalgic bad memory that seems so silly now.

She was so kind and I had read her poetry; I was lost to her then.

The lines of pain and love that washed over me completely,

Her heart poured out, as if only to me, her words a testament to young love and pain,

A recipe that was new to me then and a loving memory now.

But the coat when I wore it was a memory of her, a tangible link to the past and her life with me.

The coat had become tattered and stained in places that wouldn't wash out.

I wore it still because I couldn't let go.

I sat thinking about her again and wearing the coat.

Could it have only been four or five years since I'd seen her? It didn't seem like it then.

This all seems so silly now; it was just a coat and her just a girl.

What did it matter that she had worn it and I might never see her again?

Even now, my friends advise me that I hang on too long to things that need to be let go.

But I sat there with that coat on and looked at the blackened sleeves,

The bit of gum that wouldn't come out, the tears here and there that likely couldn't be fixed,

And I took the coat off and held it thinking of her.

Then I walked to a nearby trash can and put it inside.

I was in a public place and it seemed it wasn't quite cold enough to wear a jacket anyway.

I still like wearing jackets, coats, and hoodies, and take any occasion at all to do so,

But I thought about her a little less after that coat was disposed of and in a trash can.