Do I love you?

At night, I dream of everything we could have been.
I sleep on my side with only the moonlight framing where you could be, where you should be.

I think of every part of you as deeply as I can because even though I can't be with you in this life, I can at least console my mind and pretend I ever had a chance.

My eyes remain unfocused and dazed as I imagine you because if I ever did decide to concentrate the few fragments of you I have left in the crevices of my mind would shatter.

I hold out my hands and rest them in front of me so I can pretend that you're there and I'm holding you in the bleary distortions created by the blinds on my window.

I no longer see my hands as my own and bring the backs of yours up to my lips, which are either dry or smeared in lip balm only to be chapped but still dripping in the sunrise that would come in mere hours.

I open your palms and run my thumbs over the wrinkles and lines, massaging the softest part just above your wrist. I run my fingers over your fingers, where they meet your palms, and the lines that run along the sides of your hand and between the webbings of your skin before stopping at the tendon. You tense because you don't like your wrists. They're a reflection of darker times.

In a manner I'd typically deem over-romanticized, I place a kiss on your fingers first, trailing chaster touches down to your palms. I ask for your permission first before I kiss your scars, and I hear a soft sigh once I do so.

I pull back and meet your dark eyes, which face away from the window so a halo of light wraps around your hair. I lean forward and press my forehead to yours, the sound of our breathing syncing in the background as our noses touch.

You kiss me. But it's not the kinds of kisses you usually give me like the ones we shared in front of your friends. It's the kind I can only get in moments like this, too tender for the rest of the world to ever really understand and too precious for me to ever really explain in a competent manner.

Our lips part and I feel your hand cupping my cheek, tilting my head up slightly. I never really got over the subtle touches I'd receive from you, from the feathery skims over my collarbones to the slight squeeze I'd feel when our fingers intertwine. I think you know that.

I think you also know that this is usually where it stops. Whether I intend for it to or not.

My eyes refocus, and I quickly close them so I don't need to meet my windowsill and bedsheets that mock me. I think about what you might actually be doing now, instead.

You may or may not be sleeping, just as you may or may not be thinking about me. But I know without a doubt that you're thinking about him, and how all the things I'd love to do with you you'd love to do with him if you haven't already.

I decide to let that be the last thing in my mind as a drift off, only to be greeted by more thoughts of you as the sun rises.