For six hundred and eighty four days, I woke up. I woke up with this
bone-deep ache that never went away. I woke up to an incessant question
playing in my mind that would never be answered. I woke up alone.
For six hundred and eighty four days, I woke up without you when I woke up
at all. The thing about time is that it never does make anything better.
It just means more space to think. It means sleepless nights trying to
figure it all out. When it went wrong. How to make it better. It means
slowly losing my mind. But it never once meant getting over you.
It's
funny how the things you think you've forgotten always come rushing
back when you're standing face to face and in one swift breath, you
remember it all.
You remember everything.
The sky is
always the biggest right before it rains. That's how I learned to always
couple disappointment with expectations since no matter how beautiful
something seems, a disaster is always right on the horizon.
The
waves are crashing quickly on the shoreline, building a momentum only my
heartbeat could match. The rapid pounding against my ribs is getting
faster and faster. The water is spilling against the coastline quicker
and quicker. The whole world is moving too swiftly.
Until everything just stops—
Just
completely stalls with the sound of your voice in my ear. You're the
only person that could ever make the world stop. The only person who
could ever make me stop. Make my heart stop.
It makes me sad. It makes me smile. It makes me completely crazy. But most of all, it makes me want you.
I
can't remember the last time I saw you. Or at least that's what I tell
you every time we talk, because I don't want you to know how many times
I've replayed the sight of your eyes looking into mine, tears blurring
my vision as I watched you walk away.
You look different now,
but always the same. Always familiar. I want to step away from you.
Distance will always be the thing that saves me so I've learned how to
use it every time I'm terrified. And you scare me more than anything.
I
told myself I wouldn't go here. I told myself I wouldn't do this again.
I told myself I wouldn't come, but I do every fucking time. I want to. I
have to. Because I miss you. Because I still love you.
All I can
think when I see you is that you don't remind me of beautiful things
anymore, because it's unimaginable to compare you to anything less
breathtaking than you. I think about the way people change and how
things evolve and then I think about the way I feel about you and how
it's been the exact same since the moment I laid eyes on you.
I
don't have enough words to tell you the story of how I followed you
here. To this moment. To a second chance. To a different coastline.
All
I know is that for six hundred and eighty four days, I woke up without
you and I never want to remember what that feels like again.
