the thing I hate admitting the most is that I miss you
a familiar feeling, this I know residing in the base of my ribcage pushed down with every breath I take tucked away in the shadows of everyday supposed to be forgotten until a more convenient time
but what is a convenient time when every minute passes like nothing when days and weeks drag on like eternities when my waking hours are pockets of time turning up empty
I get stuffed into cars and trains and planes watching as cities go by like mere blurs in my vision counting broken streetlamps and closing my eyes against the dawn drumming my fingertips against my seat looking over at my sleeping companions and thinking about how it felt to hear you whisper softly asking if we’re already there
used to take deep breaths while lowering my shoulders when I’m with you used to let my laugh resonate in the too-quiet spaces used to let you know about what I have always hid from the world used to hold my arms open for you to come into
but now I’d rather not stay too close to you knowing that my everything will go rigid at the tension I didn’t even know we had too aware of every word and every sound I make a longing to go back but understanding that everything is well in the past
we are adults now, after all no more of the youth that made us giggle at each other’s shenanigans talk of dreams isn’t even something we have time for as we end up worlds away from a home we’ve shared over the years
maybe we can tell them that we tried what with all the differences that became bricks in the wall between us knocked on each other’s doors and holding onto a shred of hope that somebody will answer picked up conversation again and again but knowing it will go nowhere not the nowhere we used to be lost together in but the nowhere we now hate
I don’t know how to talk to you about the hate I feel for myself and how I want to claw my own being out about the exhaustion that won’t go away with sleep about old pictures that I can’t even bear to look at without feeling sad about how much I want to talk to you after all this time
sometimes I’m worried I might forget the sound of your laugh whenever I try to dance because all my life I’ve never been great at moving in time to music how your hands are holding me by the waist and trying to guide me through steps those eyes I can’t look into anymore sparkling with contentment the last strains of a song from somewhere enough for us to glide to
or maybe in a few years’ time I won’t remember the soft but sure way you lean into a hug arms around me with so much strength and yet the most care I never knew what fitting perfectly with someone felt like before you telling me things I can’t quite comprehend through all my tears and I have so many words, none of which I can say because how can you understand when even then, right there in your embrace we were already so far away?
I keep myself up at night to try to run through it all how we’ve soared and fallen and gotten up again and again offering arms and hands to steady each other sharing earphones and nodding to music only we can hear quiet moments where we both looked down at our laps our uneven breaths as we walked back with the sun only starting to set
I’d hate to ask for time when for a while it was me who couldn’t make time for you making excuses and shutting you out from the chaos of who I was but I need it now more than ever with the burden on my spine pushing me down further
no, I don’t want to ask you to carry it with me for it is mine to bear all I want is the way you used to hold me as I broke maybe it won’t put everything back together like it used to but for now, I don’t need it to
I’d hate to ask for explanations when I don’t even have one for how I set out on my own without you drifting from you like the paper boats on floodwater but I want my heart to be quieted from the doubts that plague it but have long been ignored
no, I don’t want to ask you to fight to keep this for it is I who caused the rift all I want is to hear about how it felt to see me go where it was hard to follow me all I want is for you to explain why when you told me I was beautiful in a language I couldn’t understand, I still knew why you keep telling the world I’m someone to be proud of when even I’m not proud of myself
I have come to accept it all, though watching as your back disappears into the shadows after being bathed in neon turning to the sea of glitter and flashes and smiles knowing this was your world too and choosing to leave it all behind is best you say there isn’t much of a place left here for you I keep thinking that your place is with me
but I will go back to the place where we grew together dance to the songs you forgot to pack with you let my smile reach the heavens we stared at for too long watch as everything blurs as I go knowing that someday, maybe you will know what place to come home to.