Or,
I Wish I Could Quite You, but I Don't Really.
Cutting you out of my life has proven a more difficult endeavor than I’d thought. You’re everywhere. But how not, in this technological world, in which everyone is connected, always?
Some nights when I lie awake, sweating in the humid southern air that no air conditioner could ever hope to cool, all I can see in my thoughts is your face, and all I can hear is the sound of your voice. I can almost still taste your skin, sweaty and sweet and always unnaturally cool, and sometimes I imagine I catch the hint of your scent blowing in through an open window, something so faint and distant it takes me a moment to remember it.
When I dream, I don’t dream of you; but I’ve never had good dreams, so how could you ever be a feature of one?
No, you are a creature of my waking world, haunting every moment. Your laugh. Your smile, curved and inviting; the taste of your lips. The feel of your hair caught up between my fingers. The sight of moonlight reflecting on your skin. The sound of your gasp, your moan, a single indrawn breath as my nails rake the long, perfect expanse of your ribs, your back, your belly, your thighs. The way your oft-rigid expression goes soft as you fall asleep. And the way you always startle, just a little, when I tell you I love you. (or was that only in the dreams I don’t let myself have about you? Did I ever really tell you, or did I only imagine that part?)
Do you know that one of the things I regret most, most, maybe more than not fighting harder for you, is that of all of the times we’ve shared a bed, we’ve never slept entwined. We’ve never even slept with our fingers brushing. There’s always been space between us.
Something has always been there.
Your lover, and then mine.
My fiancé, and then yours.
Our parents.
Thousands of miles.
Even just a few – sometimes than can be enough.
Something; always, something.
We’ve fallen apart, and there are just some pieces that don’t fit together.
And yet, and yet.
If you don’t fit anymore, why is it so damn hard to cut you out of my life?
(maybe because I’m still hoping the pieces of my heart, my soul, my world, will rearrange themselves so that you can fit again.)
