Yours, Tragically

all our parallel places 🌙

I do not miss you on Mondays.

On Mondays I am in endless motion. I let the world swallow me whole into its vortex of responsibilities. My coffee and my heart are their strongest on Mondays. My mind is set on checking off a bold string of to-do bullet points and loving you never makes the list.

I am cluttered and do not have room to think of you today.

I do not miss you on Wednesdays.

On Wednesdays I am restless. We nickname wednesdays like they are nothing but twenty four hours of white noise, tired eyes and blank stares. They are heavy traffic on the freeway, something we just need to get through, convinced we will be happier once it is over. I do not have the energy to think of how we met on this day of the week, nervous kids on highschool bleachers. I don’t have time to ruminate on how you once broke my heart on a Wednesday, nor the fact that I have to say ‘once’ because it was not the first or last time. I like the calm insignificance that has become wrapped within my Wednesdays since you.

I do not miss you on Saturdays.

On Saturdays I breach the shining surface. I break the ribbon at the finish line, an underdog in first place.

I am kind to myself on Saturdays. I take time to notice things within me and things around me. I forgive myself on Saturdays, for the mistakes I’ve made, for the things i've refused to give up. When night falls I dig loose change out of the tip jar on my desk. I surround myself with people who love me and we laugh with the kind of whole hearted happiness that scrunches eyelids together and burns deep in your belly. On Saturdays, I innocently flirt with strangers and dance without purpose to a 90’s cover band. My drinks and heart are strong on Saturdays, they blur out your name in the best way. Saturdays are a shelter from the crossfire ghosts of us.

But there is something different about Sundays.

There is a stillness that makes room for your memory. There is a quietness that welcomes you out from the corners of my mind, that greets the thoughts of you with a sad smile.

My bed grows three oceans wider and four arctics colder on sunday mornings. My limbs are entwined with sheets that start to smell like a fading version of you. The sunlight slow dancing with dust through the bay window never seems to settle on sunday afternoons. The foggy realities of why we didn’t work out cloud my living room and the hangover of your absence throbs against my skull. Sometimes Sundays taste like salt water. Sometimes they sound like 39 seconds of the song you used to love. Sometimes they take the shape of you, or who I imagine you are now.

I only miss you on Sundays.

And I will let myself, because there are only 52 Sundays in a year. I will pack the hurt into a suitcase that remains locked until church bells chime and Saturday night subsides. I will spend the other 313 days of the year free from the tight grip of reminiscence. I will fill my Mondays with memories of places you haven’t seen, I will meet wonderful people on Wednesdays, I will try new things on Saturdays. I will build myself a life that does not know you, and for 6 days of the week I will be painstakingly free.

I read once that it is not about who you miss at 2am when you’re lonely, but who you miss at 2pm when you’re busy.

When I got offered a new job, you weren’t the first person I told. When I bought a ticket across the ocean you didn’t pop into my head, when I signed up guests for graduation I didn’t scribble down your name. I have stories you’ll never hear and scars you’ll never trace, and the idea of that no longer breaks my heart.

See I only miss you on the day that allows it. I miss you on a day that make forgiveness seem feasible, that encourages sacrifice and romanticizes weakness. I only miss you on the day that was built entirely for quiet whispers, skin on skin and tangled bodies. I only miss you on days that so wrongfully convince me that there is something still here worth missing.