Thoughts of Them
Thoughts of them before they arrive, when they are here, and after they leave.
Driving
Driving along a wet road, I look over and find you looking down at your hands. The sight of them offers you more comfort than I can. A billboard with failing lights illuminates your face, and only for a moment do I see the tears that drag across your cheeks. Their trail leaves behind memories of what we once were.
I could not possibly be the man you need; I haven’t found him yet. So, I have chosen to let you go and free myself from the burden of not living up to the ideal I have led myself to believe you deserve. I convinced us you deserve better, but that’s wrong because I am the only one you want. However, I do not love who I am right now. I do not love the man that I am when I am with you.
I began to resent you when all you ever did was love me, and I see no chance of us returning to a time when I loved you. I found solace in the finality of us. With our end, I would not need to find a way back. The pain and turmoil that would come with such a return should never be felt. I rejoice at the idea that the pain will finally come to an end, even if only for myself. I am selfish.
You look at your phone so you do not have to face the man who ruined your life. I say that time will pass, and you will be better off, but neither of us believes my lies. Your quiet crying shakes me and hurts me, but I accept it as only a small punishment compared to what you will soon endure. I wish that I could comfort you and apologize, take the pain from you, but I am not sorry. I am a coward who has chosen the easiest path, and I feel no shame in having done so.
The Thought of You
When thinking of you, my mind crumbles to pieces, and I try to gather them all. I attempt to make sense of them and of what I feel, but there are so many that I do not know if I can. If I were to collect them all, I wouldn’t know how to put them back together. So, my mind will remain broken, and I will offer you what I can make from the pieces I have found. Words and phrases will spill from my mouth, but never anything whole, never what I wish to say. Yet I still search through the wreckage, hoping to find an arrangement of pieces that will make something complete. And I hope that when I do offer it to you, you choose to care for it and not let it shatter once more, for then the pieces may be truly lost, and I will have no hope of ever being whole.
Those Little Faces You Make
The ones only I get to see.
Grey
I am comfortable here in this space. I don’t know what I want from you, and you don’t know what you want from me, so why would we try to decide? Let’s not even work towards an answer. We don’t need it. We’ve been fine without it, right?
Why ruin this space we’ve created for us with expectations, plans, and labels? Here, the possibilities are endless. We can get lost in the options, inching near one but never fully committing, forever retreating into our cave of comfort. Coming to a decision rids us of this opportunity.
You think this space is confusing, and it is. It lacks a clear shape, which makes it so wonderful. We can mold it into what we enjoy and tear at the parts we don’t. We use it to serve our purpose and nothing more. This shape has no clear definition; we can choose it to be whatever we want at any moment.
You say it lacks color, and it does, but that’s because it doesn’t need one; that would be too definitive. However, in certain lights, it shines a soft pink, and in others, a deep red. These colors seem to shift randomly and sometimes fail to appear, but they have their moments and stay for as long as we might need them to.
I’m sure that trying to define what this is and what it looks like will only hurt us. So let's accept it for its grey, confusing shape and let it remain that way.
I’m comfortable here, are you?
Losing You
In losing you, I fear for myself. I fear what my life will look like without you. I fear that without you, any sense of security will have abandoned me. I fear that I’ll never know happiness without you. I fear the sun won’t shine as bright, and the moon will no longer offer its pale light. That the darkness will consume my life. Losing you, I think only of myself because you are no longer here. Because I stopped caring about you months ago. I stopped caring when you decided your smile looked better when shared with someone else. That your love and time were better spent with someone else. Losing you is scary, but at least I must no longer look at your lying face. Your mouth which speaks half-truths in attempts to placate me. Your eyes that never truly show who you are. Your ears that heard my frustrations but never listened to them. In losing you, I can finally let go of the sadness and anger that I allowed you to let into my life.
The Thing I Love About Her Most Is,
she believes the lies I tell her.
In The Same Spot With a Different Person
Nothing has changed in the years since you’ve left. Everything looks the same. Flowers are the same color; the grass is just as green. The sky remains the same calm shade of blue that it was the last time you were here. The sounds made by gusts of wind and people talking are still here.
However, after looking a little harder, I find something different, for when I look to my right, someone else sits in the spot that used to be yours. A hand with a different shape holds mine. Their voice, one unlike yours, is the one that caresses my ears. They tell me how happy they are that I have brought them to such a beautiful place. And that they hope we return here soon, to this place they have now chosen to label as “ours.”
But this is not “our” place.
This place is ours.
The memories that are attached, and will forever be, to this place will not be those of them; they'll always be of you. This place where we first said, “I love you.” Where we would listen to each other talk for hours. Where we would eventually return to so often to attempt to capture the feelings we had lost.
Now, I am here in our place with this person. A person I felt could fill the emptiness you left behind. They get the job done. They fill it well enough. They don't do so quite as well as you could, but it's better than it being empty. I’d much rather see this person than be reminded of your absence.
Much like how the scenery has failed to change, so have I. I show this person who I was when I was with you. I make the same jokes. I call them the names I called you. I hold them the way I held you. I tell them how much I love them, just like I told you. Unlike how I did with you, I don’t entirely believe it when I say it.
They squeeze my hand, and I jump a little as I stare back at them. They greet me with a calm smile, and I return it. I lean in for a kiss, and their lips meet mine. I find some comfort from my thoughts with each kiss I continue to give them. After a couple more, I pull back and look at them, a better, closer look than I have ever given them. I am immediately drawn into their eyes, not for their color but for my reflection within them. Looking at myself, I begin to wonder if once they leave, will I still be here looking at the same scenery that fails to ever change.
Maybe
Maybe I could have found happiness had I stayed a year more. Maybe 2 years. 3? Maybe I could have found where I hid the love I once had for you. If I just tried searching a little harder, I could still be the person by your side. Then, possibly, I would be able to tell you the words you deserve to be told.
But maybe time wouldn’t have helped. Maybe I would only continue to feed you the lies that kept your beautiful face turned towards only me. Maybe you would continue to be fulfilled and happy with just the parts I let you see of me. Maybe we would have ended regardless, but at least then, you might have had more of a chance to see me for who I really am.
Or maybe I would have grown up guided by the magnificent person that you are. And I would become someone who truly appreciated you for all you are worth. And maybe we might grow old together, have a long loving life with each other, have pets, a home, something we would be proud of.
Maybe with more time, I could have learned how to love you the way you deserved to be loved.
Maybe not.
When I Close My Eyes to Kiss You
I can imagine anyone as the owner of these lips.
Awake at Night
I attempt to sleep but my mind does not let me escape the thoughts of you. The drone of the night is deafening, but its screeches and yells fail to drown out the love I have for you. The sounds of a distant train, its wheels roaring along tracks, exacerbate the feelings I have for you. I love you and feel it so deeply that I fail to sleep. My heart screams at me, and my mind is restless, thinking of every moment I have spent with you.
I replay our every interaction. The first time we met. The shy, awkward greeting we exchanged. The first time I made you laugh. How I tried so hard to avoid your gaze while hoping that you would look at me. The first time we truly looked into each other's eyes. The first time we told each other, “I love you.” I think of the last meal we just shared and how amazing it tasted because I got to have it next to you. How merely hours ago you laid in bed next to me. Now, here I am, unable to sleep and filled with excitement that I’ll get to see you tomorrow.
I think about all of the moments I have with you and every moment we have yet to experience. Memories of us are vivid and clear because I never let them go. And the future is so bright and beautiful because you’ll be at my side. So my nightly routine continues, and the night becomes a time not for me to sleep but to remind me of how much I love you.
I don’t think I’ll get any sleep. But if I do, you’ll still be there in my dreams, keeping me company.
The Faces I make
The ones only you get to see.
In The Trees
After you, I stand looking up at a tree. Its branches trace paths in the sky, reaching into the endless blue. It is right before spring, and the leaves are bright and green; they are happy for the warm weather and hopeful it will continue. The sun falling through the spaces between the leaves lands on my face, and though it makes it hard to see, I too am hopeful for the coming spring.
You and I were together for three years, and I have grown so much in that time. We have grown so much. I learned what it meant to love and what it meant to be loved. You were there for all of it by my side, in my dreams, and in my heart. And now you are there no longer. Because we grew together, and I learned so much. I learned what I want from life, from myself, and for myself. Unfortunately, none of that includes you. I am not sad, nor am I happy. What I’ve done to you might be the worst pain you will feel for a long time. I wish I could do this without hurting you. But there was no way not to. You love me, and at some point, I loved you.
As these rays of light shine upon me, I look forward. I look forward to the person I can become with the knowledge you have given me and who you might become with what I offered you. It will not be an easy path for you or me, but I feel it necessary to reach a place where we both are happy and fulfilled.
The sun is warm and seems to envelop me as it does to the leaves, leaving them and me shining. I hope it does the same for you.