yours truly

I still think about you; your name floats through my mind like a ship lost at sea, no destination in sight. I feel a familiar ache in my chest, a quiet yearning, to tell you everything that you have missed. I realize, though, that I do not miss you. I miss an old version of you; I miss the you who spoke of our future, who molded plans around the taste of forever. I want to talk to the version of you that is frozen in time, untouched by a future that doesn’t include me—that doesn’t include us. So here I am, writing letters to the past, speaking to someone who doesn’t know me in this lifetime, but who wanted to. I know he wanted to be here, and would have given anything to see this though. He was like that; he never gave up on anything that he wanted. But he’s not here anymore—you are. You have his face, and his eyes, and his laugh, but you don’t have his love for me. You left that behind. Quietly folded it up, a sweater that you outgrew years ago, and put it away in a chest that is nestled somewhere between your ribs. Untouched. Right where it belongs.