arteliér

we’re high school friends with no touch point. people who say bye without saying hi. platonic lovers whose messages i read back like love letters, and i can hardly remember how they used to speak like that, or how i used to speak like that.

now i see messages like i miss you and know they don’t mean them. it’s customary and cold, cordial and respectful. there is no intimate hug or inside joke. we act like best friends and speak like strangers.

i wonder how many speak behind my back. i wonder how many makes me the butt of their jokes. the story at the dinner table. the gossip at the coming-of-age.

at this point, i’d be grateful if they even remembered me. my name. my laugh.

i hope they know that their name gnaws holes in my chest. that for a moment i struggle to breathe. that every “no, i don’t know how they’re doing” kills me a little bit more, makes my stomach heave, makes me wonder if i’m having a heart attack. i wonder if they know i think about them now, at 3:11 in the morning, and in the quiet silence before work, and in the buzzling noise between classes. i wonder if they realize they’re present in my coffee order, in my favorite food, in the way i wear my dresses or the keyboard smashes in my texts. i wonder if they realize i’ve taken a piece of them to carry with me, and i wonder if that makes them feel empty now that i’ve left.

i hope they sit by the window one day and remember me. i hope they look past old photos and see my face and a little part of them constricts. i hope we have the fortune of meeting, one last time, so i can tell them that “hey, you were special to me. you always are. and when you move on to bigger, better things, more glorious and more special things, i hope you don’t forget me. as i won’t forget you.”

but i don’t. i sit on the other side of my phone, and when you reply to a story or text me good night, the only thing i say is “i miss you.”