soft

I am forgetting. I am forgetting everything. Yesterday I read a diary entry about the first time I told you I loved you. I felt as though I was reading about somebody else’s life.

“One day - I will tell you about the dream I had, where you and I were together and you did not leave, where I was not terrified and you were not numb, where things were the way we wished they could be and not the way they are.”

has your best friend ever broken your heart?

“Please, remember this. There was a love and it was ours. It was ours.”

I wish I could have told you that your pain was also hurting me. But how could I? How could I add to your disaster like that? So I kept quiet, all the while letting it set me on fire from the inside.  Now, you say that you have found your peace. I tell you that I am so happy for you. I tell you that I am proud. I tell you that I knew you would get there. I don’t tell you that I am still suffering. I don’t mention the third-degree burns you left, that no hospital will ever be able to treat. I don’t breathe a word about it.

“He’d never cared much for strawberries, but that summer her lips were so stained with the juices that they were all he tasted. And he’d never had a favourite fruit, but two years later, a new girl is sat in front of him, laughing at his jokes. “If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?” She asks playfully. And he remembers how her hands traced the veins in his neck and made their way across his chest. He remembers her soft breathing and limbs draped across his shoulders. “Strawberries.” He tells her. “I could live a life on nothing but strawberries.””

“With the right person, it feels simple. Even when it’s difficult it feels simple. Because you never question if it’s worth it. You know the answer is yes.”

“You were thirteen, lying on her bed swearing you’d be best friends forever. Nowadays you barely talk. Nowadays you pass each other with your heads shoved down, like strangers who are scared to make a noise. The inside of her bedroom is no longer pastel pink; she no longer wears her hair long. You can’t remember the exact moment you stopped sharing secrets, all you know is you no longer know her favourite song. You can’t remember the exact moment things changed, or whether there was an exact moment at all. But these days you pass each other in the corridors and thirteen year old you wonders what went wrong.”

“Sometimes though, the sadness feels familiar and you go back to it even though you swear you never would. It’s good at lending you a hand when you’re down. It’s good at pretending to be your friend. It’s good at looking you up and down, a cigarette in its upturned mouth, and saying - “I’m the only one that’s here for you now. See? I’m the only one who understands.” And in times like these, you almost welcome its reappearance. It’s a liability, but it’s a constant. It doesn’t love you like you wish something - someone, would, but it loves you in its own, corrupted way. It’s better than nothing, you tell yourself “It’s still love.””

“Call me at 4am. Wake me up. I don’t care, I just want to hear your voice. Tell me about the bad dream you had, tell me why you can’t fall asleep. Tell me why you prefer to talk at night, or why the words only come spilling from your mouth when you think no one is listening. I am here. I will listen to you when your shoulders feel heavy; I will hear your words when you feel so crushingly small. I will sit with you in silence when you are slumped against your pillow. I know your sadness is not beautiful, I know it is overwhelming and destructive and ugly. I know you feel powerless and redundant. So call me at 4am. I prefer you over sleep any day. Don’t sit there on your own. Talk to me. I love you and I care.”

But how can you miss someone when they are right beside you?“ She asks. “You can,” I say, “you can. When they are beside you but they are not yours. When they can leave without a moment’s notice and you do not have the right to ask them to stay.