I keep waiting for your text, like we wait for the time. Like we stand at the edge of the window pane as kids, our noses to the glass.
I do not know what I am doing, or if this is right. Or what should be right, after all.
When I think of you now, I remember only the good. But this is what always happens, right? It’s not that there isn’t always good to think of, it’s just that now this room is empty and my chest is hollow, echoing back at me.
I imagine the curve of your arm—what a funny thing to imagine, an arm curve—but there it is. The way your shoulder pulls down then back up at your bicep; I’ve traced the lines of the tattoo there. I’ve tried to imagine tracing those lines years from now. It used to be much clearer, then.
I imagine your slippers, though I wonder if you have packed them. They did make me laugh, they way they were more expensive than any shoes I’ve owned—am I making a mistake?
Today I’ve prayed more than I have in months. I am afraid of losing you. But I am also afraid of hurting you.
I do not want to be alone. But I want to be independent, in the sense that I don’t have to feel like I should be accountable for anything. I do want I want because it feels right in that moment.
Like you always felt right to me.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m making a choice based on others. But then again, if there’s passion between us, I want to feel it. Show me the passion. Grab me by the arm, don’t let me go even if you have to.
You’re too quick to shut off the phone lines, to turn away and forget that I’m real. But I am real. I am breathing, miles away. Three hundred and ninety-four to be exact. Can you feel my heartbeat from that far? Or have you already forgotten?
What if things were different, could you tell me that? Why don’t you pick up the phone and call, just to tell me that you love me. You couldn’t have stopped loving me already. Please tell me this isn’t true.
I am terrified I’m making a mistake.
I’m waiting for you to call like a child waits for her father to come home from work, like a dog waits for the steaming bowl of leftovers. Can’t you see that this hurts me more than anything? Or have you already turned your head?
Heartbreak is one thing they don’t teach you in school.