It's always been like that with you. I think I always knew you'd hate me in the end, but... I touch the things that you have touched. Silly, meaningless things. Those glasses, delicate and mirror-shine gold. A door where you used to linger or a seat you always preferred. I touch them as if they are sacred. Somehow I always knew that was as close to you as I could be, and now I touch the handle you touched every day for so long, and I remember you with such a present stab of longing and hurt and frustration that I pull back as if burned. But a second later, my fingers are back, tracing every dent and ding, every flaw that distinguishes the cold metal, hungry for the memory of who you were when you were kind to me. For a moment, I am frozen, remembering you smile at me, as if we shared a secret, remembering how I could never quite meet your eyes- that startling green, had I betrayed you already by caring so?- I remember and it is glorious and devastating. I never touched you, nor you me, but we left a mark upon each other and it stings with a deliciously permanent pain. I feel love for that wound, just now, as my fingers quest for any evidence of yours, although a thousand hands have separated ours in brushing that handle. And then suddenly I pull back, the illusion shattered, and walk quickly from the hall, chagrin flooding me for loving so deeply someone who can't even stand the sound of my name.