When your senses are number by the alcohol in your bloodstream,

To have you call,

Because you’re in a place where you’re happy, and all you want to do is share that with me,

Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like,

I could feel you, intertwined with my bones. Draped over the muscles of my heart. Injected into my veins.

Even though you’ve left, physically and whatever emotion we shared is drifting away. Sometimes, the urge to feel you in my arms was so visceral, I swear I could conjure you into existence.

But today, I listened to a song that I normally don’t listen to. It’s about two lovers whose love is just never enough, how their life is a series of almost’s. And it’s made me cry, so much, that I just stopped listening to it. I could hear our fights, our tears, our kisses etched into that story.

I heard it today, and what surprised me was the absence of the tears that I’m used to.

There was a strange sort of resignation that enveloped me, and the urge to be around you wasn’t so visceral.

I remember things differently after it’s over. Perhaps it’s affection that provides you with rose tinted glasses, but everything that seemed right anymore doesn’t.

The interactions are tinged with doubt, because you didn’t believe in yourself enough (or us). Every moment of indecision leads me a moment of thinking whether this was real or not. Which is funny because I never doubted what we had or the way I felt – for one second. But you did, and cracks appeared like never before.

I let down my guard, without caring about my intuition that things might not be right after all. Because it was you, and you made me feel safe and happy and all these other emotions that felt like the real deal. But I also disregarded the times you made me cry and doubt myself.

You stand in front of me, but you’re not the person I fell for.

I could trace the lines on your face, and imprint the color of your dark eyes forever in my brain.

But it’s not the person I knew, it’s not the person who made me happy.

He looks at me, and his expression is unfathomable.

“Why didn’t we give up? Why did we insist on putting each other through it all?”

“It’s not our fault it didn’t work out. And there’s only one answer I have to your questions.”

He looks at me, straight in the eye.

“I love you. A part of me will always love you, because how could I not? We’ll go our separate ways, but you’ll always be the first girl who made me realise what it means to want to live for someone else.”

I can feel the tears at the back of my eyes.

“We’ll find other people to call our own, but I don’t want you to forget we didn’t end because we fell out of love. We just couldn’t love in the circumstances we were in. The timing was always wrong.”

I can feel the tears down my face now.

 “We don’t talk anymore.”

 “Do you miss him?”

 “Sometimes, I make myself believe that I don’t. And then I’m always looking at the phone and I realize with every buzz, every call, I’m waiting for his name to light up the screen.”

 “Why don’t you call?”

 A mirthless laugh, a heavy sigh.

 “Because it would destroy me if we started talking again.”

 Lips on skin, a slight moan.

 “That’s just how it’s going to be, then?”

1)   The way you rolled your eyes whenever I pointed out your flawed grammar. And then snaked one arm around my waist as you pulled me close and whispered, “are you still thinking about grammar?”

2)   The way you allowed your mom to coddle you. And then looked at me and smiled. “Isn’t she beautiful, mom?”

3)   The music you listened to. It was sad and talked of heartbreak at a time when my heart didn’t understand what it meant. Maybe I should’ve listened closer to what it could have meant.

4)   How your priorities were never established. But you always told me, “but you’re #1 right now.”

5)   The way you never picked up the phone when I couldn’t sleep. Just when I put my own phone away, it would buzz and you’d sleepily drawl, “thanks for waking me up.”

6)   The way you’d laugh at me for squealing over babies (just because you couldn’t trust yourself not to drop one).

7)   The way you’d tease me with dogs around us even though you knew I was terrified. And when one would actually come our way, you’d slowly pull me behind you so it never came near me.

8)   How you’d be your charming self and everyone around you would be enchanted. And I’d just roll my eyes every single time till you’d reach over, pull me closer and kiss my hair.

9)   Your perfume. Goddamn thing made me swoon, every single time. Every time I was supposed to be angry at you.

it’ll take you back to the way we fit against one another and the way my hair curled against the small of my back (it drove you crazy).

and you’ll look at her and you’ll see a flash of dark brown against her grey irises and freckles against her clear skin, but the illusion goes away after you blink.