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When the moments I cherish now were so abundant and were given to me in such quick succession and with such a reception, by me, of undeservedness, the moments I reflect on them without you there are especially hard to take
I tried really hard to take a picture with my mind
When we were sitting on the hood of my car at the top of Mt. Baker, with a blanket around us and snow behind us
The sky was incomprehensibly massive and ash from our cigarettes glowing as it fell seemed like the only thing less than heavenly in scale
That night was dark but the millions of stars lit up the snow
And the lodge that looked so tiny a mile off to our right
Some strings of words bring memories of you so detailed that my senses would believe you were really here -
You bury your sharp chin into my shoulder and I can feel you haven’t shaved since yesterday
You stretch out your hands in a certain way to gesture as you speak, and your laugh makes me shiver
And the sweetness of your brown eyes, the little crinkle beneath each one, when they fleetingly meet mine over my chessboard
And the way your voice is different when you murmur something to me from right behind my ear, and your smell and warmth are so indescribably comfortable
I fall asleep so easily when my bed still smells like you
But it’s harder now that it no longer does
I’m laying here in my bed that only smells like me
And I can hear a woman crying in the next apartment, and though I don’t know the reason for her pain I also feel like crying very often these days
Like alone in my car driving down Lakeway in the morning
And one song you once told me to listen to comes through my stereo and punches me in the chest
And all I can feel for a second is both our misery, over whatever it might be, and suddenly I’m crying almost too hard to see the road
I exist perpetually in restlessness because I am so disconnected from my emotions I fear I don’t get across to you or anyone how much they mean
And don’t feel like I understand how to act like a human being, or to form any emotional connection
But in that moment and so many others, I was almost free from that restlessness
With you I’m either crushed by it or nearly freed from it and I don’t know why
That’s how come it stings to reflect on times you were there, now that you aren’t
I didn’t cherish the times of liberation deeply enough, or perhaps I caused them to end with my incapability to maintain a human connection, or by forgetting how to act like a person
Still, I had probably fallen too fast and dedicated too much of myself too soon, but it’s been long enough now that I don’t really care
You are older than me and a lot more beautiful and seem to understand the world a lot better
But I remember the picture I took with my mind during that meteor shower in perfect detail
And I think - there’s almost as many things I’d do to have that again and again as there were stars above us that night
















