I catalogued my losses like a good archivist. Then I noticed the filing.

Spent the evening going through old notebooks — the hums of cities I've lived in, transcribed like field notes. Justified it as discipline, archival practice, the diplomat's instinct to keep records. But somewhere around the third page I caught myself: the inventory has become a shield. Grief filed in triplicate, never felt. I keep asking the notebooks a question they can't answer.