The Old Handwriting on the Shopping List on the Fridge Door

The shopping list is still on the fridge door,
held by a magnet shaped like a slice of watermelon.
The handwriting leans to the right,
like someone hurrying on ahead.

Spring onions. Yoghurt. Dish soap.
"Soap" is crossed out,
rewritten beside it: half a bottle left.
I never once asked
who was counting the dish soap.

I open the fridge for a bottle of water.
The magnet swings
and settles,
a small nod.

Three months now.
The paper has gone coffee-brown at the edges.
I could take it down in a second.
I have stood here
a great deal longer than a second.

Today I bought spring onions.
No need to write it down.
Just one thing,
and all the way home
I read it over in my head in that leaning hand.

The list is still there. I went to the market.

This poem came from a Saturday morning when I opened the fridge for a bottle of water, my T-shirt still smeared with machine oil from the air-conditioner repair the day before. The kitchen smelled of the plastic of a fridge not yet fully cold, a motorbike hauling vegetables rattled down the alley outside, and on the door was the familiar slip of paper. I had walked past it a hundred times, and that morning was the first time I actually read it.

I did not take it down. I will not say I kept it out of longing either. Some days I think I kept it to avoid deciding, and deciding is more tiring than looking at a piece of paper each morning. That afternoon I went to the market and stopped at the stall of the vegetable seller I know.

"How many bunches of spring onions?"
"Just one, auntie."
"You used to take two."
"Right… I eat alone now, one is enough."

She did not ask more, and I did not explain. On the ride home the spring onions poked out of the plastic bag, their sharp smell blowing back in the wind, and I found it funny that I was reading their name in someone else's handwriting. A poem lets me skip explaining that part.

If you want to try writing one like this, start from an object that still carries your ex's handwriting or fingerprints, not from longing. Longing comes out as the same sentence for everyone. An object is different in every house.

The first time, many people write lines like "I still miss them so much" and find the page as flat as plain paper. Crossing those out is already the right direction. After a week of writing a stanza or two for other objects, some people find they look at the things in their home for longer, some find it heavier than at first, and some have not produced a word. All of that is fine. On a busy day, two lines are enough: the name of the object and one word on it.

I trip over one thing: ending the poem with an explanation, like "because I still love them". It is tempting because I fear the reader will not understand, and because writing the sentence relieves my chest. But the explanation closes the door on the poem. Try stopping at what you are doing, the way I stopped at going to the market. Your object may be something else entirely, and what remains in the room is about exactly such things. If you are caught between keeping and letting go, deleting old photos or keeping them also sits in that in-between, and both choices make sense.

When to seek professional support

This article is a short poem with a writing exercise for when an ex's belongings are still in your home. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising the sadness will ease after you write.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• Sadness after the breakup lasts for weeks without shifting, or keeps getting heavier
• You cannot tidy, walk past or look at their things without getting stuck, to the point where housework or work is affected
• Your sleep or eating is clearly disrupted for a long stretch
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Seeing a professional does not mean things have gotten bad to some particular degree. Often it is simply a place to set down what you have been carrying alone for too long.