It's easy when you're an hour away and it's been a few weeks.
It's easy when you aren't brought up in conversation like you're the sting of coffee on the tip of everyone's tongue.
You no longer linger in my dreams, day or night because you haven't got the time anymore.

But it's not easy when you've decided to spend the night and the walk from my bedroom to the loft where your heavy breathing feels like it's suffocating me and all that will ease the discomfort is laying beside you, is just steps away.
It's not easy when the soft whispers of how much you love me bounce around the room, repeating themselves, and when I ask if you hear it too all you say you can hear is the soft hum of the refrigerator.
It's not easy when you grab me by my hands and waltz with me in the hallway, and when I say I can't dance, you say you can't either.
It's not easy when I thought I was finally doing okay, and you just came right back.

I can't blame you, because I love you.
And it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

I really ******* miss you, but I'm no longer bitter.
I really ******* love you, but I'm glad I said goodbye.

Seems easier when the sun is out.
Easier to smile, to appreciate the small bits about you you don't like.
To open your dusty journal and begin writing about love again.
Seems that way.
I've had a hard time sitting with a pen and paper in front of me, the paper blank and the pen filled to the brim with ink.
The paper whispers that it misses me, that I've been gone too long.
The pen? Feels so foreign in my hands it's like I've forgotten.

But maybe that shouldn't leave such a vile taste in my mouth? Is my mind fooling me? You see, the reason I started with those two in the first place was because of him, he led me to them.
They became my companions, my bodyguards, my shelter.
They became my needle, supplying the high I needed when I felt abandoned.

Now? Now I can't think of a better time in my life to be happy. Even saying the number 17 sounds wicked, and if you look hard enough there's a smile hiding behind it. As much as I want to stay here with them, and write until wit's end, I don't need to anymore.

I've misplaced my unhappiness, and I don't think I want to go searching for it yet.

I still do not know why you left the way you did. So quick, it was like I turned around for a second and you took it as your opportunity. But you couldn't see that when you left, you kicked up dirt from running away so fast. It got caught in my eye, and now I can't see the same.

I remember one night, we were up until 4:00 in the morning finishing my mothers jigsaw puzzle. It was set up on the dining room table where I sat, and you were standing on the very same chair I was sitting on. Hovering over me, you said it gave you a better view, I just thought it was going to **** your back being bent over the way you were tomorrow morning.  
We were silent, the only sound heard was the sound of your breathing and mine, occasionally matching in sync. You would stretch your arm above me to reach for a piece, and the other would rest itself on my head, gently scratching at my scalp, how soothing.
To any onlooking eyes, it would seem rather strange. The position we were in was in no way normal, but that's how most of our situations ended up being, far from it.
When we finally finished, after hours of contemplation on whether or not we should complete the task, and small remarks with giggles as responses, you stepped down from the chair and grabbed a glass of water as a token of victory, I still remember the way you smiled when you looked at the finished product.
We slept that night apart, but together. You were on one end of the sectional and I was on the other, because we were both too afraid of what the other might say. But right as I started to descend into sleep, you made your way to my end, laid behind me and whispered into my ear that I was great. It was bound to happen, we were like two magnets, always finding our way to each other.

But now it seems like we are the opposite ends, the magnets now fighting against each other, refusing to meet.
So I'm sitting here, a whole year later, finishing another puzzle that I didn't start, but this time I'm all alone. I can't seem to figure out how a picture distorted into 500 different pieces could make me so sad, but somehow it managed. This time you aren't here too encourage me to keep going even though it's 2 in the morning and I'm half asleep. Tonight I am not sleeping on my couch with you by my side and I do not have a stupid smile across my face. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did.

You ripped away from me, there were no more spontaneous texts letting me know you were stopping by, no more staying over late, and saying goodbye when the sun came up.
We were everything. We were Sunday brunches, we were midnight ice cream splurges, we were the song you blasted in your car driving down an empty road.

And now?
We are nothing .

I imagine a day where I walk through the door and there you are, lying on the couch, fast asleep with the TV remote in your hands. I slightly nudge you to move over, only awakening parts of you, but enough for you to know that I am home and in your arms.
I imagine a day where time doesn't seem to bother us as we talk endlessly about distasteful danishes and preferred pillow cases.
I imagine a day where you cannot get enough of me, and flames inside turn into wildfires.

I imagine, I imagine, I imagine.
I never experience.

And as I watched him run away from me, with tears in his eyes from the laughter he emitted due to a bad joke, I realized how nice it must be to call such a beautiful person yours.

To wake up in the morning accompanied by him and the sound of silence, because studying one another whilst lying weaved together in only a way the two of you can,  is enough to tell you that you aren't crazy, but in fact, insane.

Why is it that the empty spot in my bed suddenly feels so cold when it was never warm to begin with?
He never laid with me after long days, played with the ends of my hair, or kissed behind my ear so even in my sleep I would know he was there.
Why is it that I find myself wanting to use such affectionate titles when calling out to him, when I never had the right to in the first place?
He never slips his fingers through mine when walking back to the car, and neither do I absentmindedly reach over the middle console to hold his free one whilst driving home.

Yet, he never rejects my head laid in his lap after long nights, watching re-runs of a TV show neither of us were really paying attention to.
He never tells me to quit running my shaky fingers through his hair, neither do I wish him away when the sleepy look in his eyes tells me he wants nothing but my company.
And never have I ever scolded him for telling me sweet things when I needed to hear them the most.

The moments we spent under the Autumn leaves are long forgotten, like old Polaroids hidden beneath old gum wrappers and one too many distractions. Only pulled out when in need of feeling something, something to remind you that what you felt was real, that you weren't crazy.

I will not deny that I miss him, his touch. I will not deny that I fell in love with the person that he was that Fall.

However, I will deny any thoughts of him not needing me, because I desperately need him, and I like to imagine a place where we both somehow need each other.