geo

i.

we were so young then. we didn't know how precious time was. i want to tell you everything now, all i truths i wasn't able to articulate. maybe then, i would been more patient. maybe i could've loved understood how to love you the way you needed, not just the way i knew how. i wouldn't ask you to remember me. it would be enough to see you again, even if i were only a stranger again. just to see you alive in this world, that alone would bring me peace.

in another life, i think we made it. we laughed until our ribs ached. we stayed. you would sit outside, cross-legged in the grass, hair drifting in the breeze, your radiant smile outshining the sun. i see it now, just as i did then: the way the world paused for you, the wind becoming gentle. everything revolved around you.

would you still love me if i had been someone else? what if i were softer, steadier, less wounded, less afraid? would you still have cradled my head in your lap while i unraveled, whispering secrets i didn't know how to hold? would you have stayed when the walls came down and the dust filled our lungs? would you have been there when i woke up, dazed and desperate, reaching for a hand i wasn't sure would still be there?

ii.

does it still hurt when you hear my name? is it just a word to you, now? did you throw away the letters i sent you? burn them, maybe, just to make sure they don't come back to haunt you? do you still visit the places we've been, the ones echoing with the laughter we left behind? do you still think about the past? do you imagine me there?

life doesn't feel the same without you. it hasn't felt real since you left. i've started over every morning since, reborn and bewildered, moving through the world like a stranger in my own skin. i try not to remember it, but there is a grave for you in the quiet corner of my mind. would it have been easier for me if you were actually dead?

iii.

you're still somewhere out there. that truth alone opens the wound all over again. you left a hollow space where my heart should be, and it echoes in every person i have met since. i think i've built a disaster around your absence, something that waits, quietly, for anyone who dares to come close. i don't let them. i can't. i'm too afraid i'll give them everything, like i gave to you, like i gave to those before, and lose it all. again.