Sep 2013
It no longer needs to be said.
The words "I miss you" have gone back and forth between us so many times in so few days that the sentiment is fully understood. I miss you. You miss me. We are alone and separate and distant and all the terrible things we never wanted to be, and we know, we are painfully aware, but we repeat it, everyday, through lonely screens and tired fingertips.
"I miss you." It is our new hello.
Every time my world brightens with these words from you, my heart breaks, and I smile. I stop to think of all the suns that rose and fell when I was with you. I sigh in the darkness and try to conjure up your eyes in my mind, but I never could look at you long enough to tell what color they are. I know they are dark, and that they shine the brightest when you drop a clever retort over your shoulder. I write back, "I miss you too."
I don't want to miss you anymore; I want one of us to get on a plane and I want to see you on my couch again. I want to hug you for the second time and talk about how long it's been. I want to hand you the remote and let you flip between our favorite channels and listen to you tell the boring stories we always teased you for. I want to tell you how no one has ever supported me or understood me the way that you do. I want us to play schoolyard games and travel the world and stay up all night. I want to tell you how you wrecked my life when you walked into it, how you took me under your wing and rearranged every part of me, how you sang to me songs I'd never heard, taught me to speak words I'd never spoken, and made me feel safer and stronger than I'd ever known I could feel.
But I am frightened, still, and I shrink into myself as a shadow when the sun rises; you are a star if ever there was a star, and I am a moon at best. You have given me light and warmth and I have absorbed it, consumed it, and given nothing back but my admiration. I cannot touch you, cannot stare too long. I cannot speak; what would the night say to the day?
You say that you miss me, and I wonder how you see me in your mind, if you know the color of my eyes, if you know when they shine the brightest. You say that you miss me, and I wonder if you mean it in the way that I do when I echo the phrase back to you, because I say that I miss you, but in my heart I do not only miss, but love.
The words "I miss you" have gone back and forth between us so many times in so few days that the sentiment is fully understood. I miss you. You miss me. We are alone and separate and distant and all the terrible things we never wanted to be, and we know, we are painfully aware, but we repeat it, everyday, through lonely screens and tired fingertips.
"I miss you." It is our new hello.
Every time my world brightens with these words from you, my heart breaks, and I smile. I stop to think of all the suns that rose and fell when I was with you. I sigh in the darkness and try to conjure up your eyes in my mind, but I never could look at you long enough to tell what color they are. I know they are dark, and that they shine the brightest when you drop a clever retort over your shoulder. I write back, "I miss you too."
I don't want to miss you anymore; I want one of us to get on a plane and I want to see you on my couch again. I want to hug you for the second time and talk about how long it's been. I want to hand you the remote and let you flip between our favorite channels and listen to you tell the boring stories we always teased you for. I want to tell you how no one has ever supported me or understood me the way that you do. I want us to play schoolyard games and travel the world and stay up all night. I want to tell you how you wrecked my life when you walked into it, how you took me under your wing and rearranged every part of me, how you sang to me songs I'd never heard, taught me to speak words I'd never spoken, and made me feel safer and stronger than I'd ever known I could feel.
But I am frightened, still, and I shrink into myself as a shadow when the sun rises; you are a star if ever there was a star, and I am a moon at best. You have given me light and warmth and I have absorbed it, consumed it, and given nothing back but my admiration. I cannot touch you, cannot stare too long. I cannot speak; what would the night say to the day?
You say that you miss me, and I wonder how you see me in your mind, if you know the color of my eyes, if you know when they shine the brightest. You say that you miss me, and I wonder if you mean it in the way that I do when I echo the phrase back to you, because I say that I miss you, but in my heart I do not only miss, but love.
I was thinking about how I miss my friends and stuff and it spiraled out of control into this weirdly romanticized bit of prose that borders on complete fiction at some points. Not the usual poetry, but I thought I'd share anyhow.
