Wallflower

For months. For miles. Across cities. Across timezones.

It was always you and me.

eating breakfast. Waking up next to each other in different beds across different cities. Driving countless miles on open roads. Finding dark dive bars and getting lost in each city we landed in.

It was always you and me.

Deep conversations late at night under the haze of gummys and too many gin and tonics. Silent conversations using just our eyes. Roadies on long drives while we shared ghosts that still haunted us.

It was always you and me.

Across seasons. The grey days of a northeastern winter. Bathing in Golden hour during the picture perfect days of spring. Sharing the darkness buried inside both of us while Illuminating each other with our light.

It was always you and me.

Your deep green eyes that occasionally turned shades of blue. Uneven nostrils. Bloodshot eyes. Grey streaks in your beard. Your biggest insecurities became the features I couldn’t stop dreaming about.

It was always you.

My need for reassurance. The way my body always instinctually reaches for you. My brown eyes finding you in any room we enter.

It was always me.

Margs and middle seats. Almonds. Taylor swift. Tenderheart. Ipas. Lake bunny. Orioles game. Very late nights. Edibles. You belong with me. Oysters. U up podcast.

Muscle memory had me reach out and touch you before you left that night, like we had known each other in a past life. I quickly became embarrassed and filed you away in the back of my mind, hoping to forget you like so many men before you in that season. Weeks passed and in the middle of the sweltering Southern California heat you came back into my orbit. A simple tap against your phone screen and we began living in each other’s universes.

The months that followed were full of texts and phone calls, tunnel vision in rooms full of screaming girls; somehow always being pulled towards each other like we were the only two people in the room. We were traveling around the state with plans to travel the country…together. There were the car rides where we acknowledged the ghosts that we lived with, our own inside jokes, sun soaked days spent laughing, nights stoned, and plenty of quiet mornings with just you and coffee.

Everything was so heavy when I was in love with him. Heavy conversations between sheets, heavy eyes from late nights and early mornings sneaking into each other’s beds, my heavy heart pretending that him holding me was enough.

“you’re a fantastic and beautiful person but you need someone permanent” - I didn’t realize we were just avoiding loneliness together.