One thick volume on the history of
numbers, which dripped with literary prose.
Nine slim volumes of collected Marvel
comics, mostly Hawkeye and Iron Man.

That cosy room where we would stay up late
and pull the battered wingback chairs up close
to the flickering warmth of the laptop screen—
winter nights shortened by Netflix and gin.

A tiny pension which, if I retire
to Malta where the tax regime creates
the right conditions, could yield up to ten—
or even twenty—kronor every month.

That balcony, where I would sit for hours
and try to read, but always end up lost
in the obscene amount of sky, and sea
reflecting sky, sky reflecting seasons.

The nagging sense of guilt, when another
waiter switched to perfect English to
avoid my badly broken Swedish, which—for
want of practice—I also left behind.

Pieces of myself: exfoliated
skin, the last pretence of a head of hair,
fingernail clippings, the corner chipped from
my tooth, a paper thin slice of one lung.

Enough oxycontin that the eyes of
the clerk at the drugstore widened when I
turned it in, and I wondered later if
it was destroyed, or smuggled home and sold.

Most of my remaining faith in God, which
I was sure I’d packed, but in the chaos
of that final week, it must have ended
up in the wrong box, or on the wrong plane.

Three years of my life, questionably spent.