to be chosen

by Clayton Eccard

“Seemed apt,” he said.

I didn’t need to press play.

“Aptly chosen,” I said. I listened and then I put it away.

We laughed.

Months earlier, he had shown me a photo of his house. A weeping cherry near the sidewalk, its

branches curved toward the earth. I remember wishing it had been in bloom.

We’ve been back in contact long enough now to be careful.

The first time we tried, I didn’t know how to choose him.

“I felt like you chose him,” he said.

At the time, I explained.

I understand he wasn’t asking for fairness.

He was asking to be chosen.

There are things I can say now that have nowhere to land.

When I see his name, my heart skips, just once.

After we hang up, I sit in the quiet.

I never saw the tree in bloom.

Photo of Clayton Eccard

BIO: Clayton Eccard is a New York–based writer interested in the tensions between intimacy, memory, and perception, often writing from moments where emotional clarity arrives after the fact. His work has appeared in OUT Magazine and Lavender Rising, with work forthcoming in Welter, Beyond Queer Words, and the Southeast Review.