I wish I could talk to you again.
I miss when I would walk into your room, plop down on your bed, and finally take off the oppressive tie around my neck. It felt like a noose that only your presence could loosen. A lot of things felt like a noose, at times. We would just sit, and talk for hours. And talk about real things, too. Not just this small talk stuff that I am forced into with most of my interactions. We delved deep behind everything, searching the corners of our minds for new ideas.
And you thought so much like me, too. It was scary, really, the way our minds seemed to sync up. You often found the most beautiful ways to say what I could not formulate into words, and you would joke that I was psychic for saying what you tried to say just before you could say it. We challenged each other in our biases, for me to view the world a little differently, and for you to see the world as a little bit better.
We shared a passion for justice, and your heart, that sweet heart, drew me to you. I could never get over the way you smiled at me when I ranted, sometimes not understanding, but listening anyway. I know you must’ve really loved me because you would put up with my strange tangents about technical things that the average person would spend their entire life without ever thinking. And I loved to hear of your passion for people. I could listen to you talk about them for year, and I treasure every minute of those four years I got to listen.
But the silence was equally sweet. There was a peace there, where I could truly rest. I took off all of my many hats, and threw them on the messy floor with all the other lost artifacts. Somewhere on that floor was a box with all the love notes I wrote to you. I still have those you gave to me, somewhere in an envelope. Maybe I’ll read them again one day.
We tried to be friends, for a little while. I think we both knew that you can’t really be friends with someone you loved so deeply. Things became strained. That probably hurt the worst. Hoping against hope that somehow, I hadn’t lost everything I loved about you, and seeing it quickly slip away. Maybe the girl who listened to me would still talk to me. Maybe that girl would let me listen.
When communication was cut off, I spiralled. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t even like myself very much without you. I loved me when I loved you. I think I did life right then. But alone?
Then you went off and made a lot of decisions I couldn’t condone. I made a bunch of stupid decisions I couldn’t condone. And our relationship was over, without any possibility for reconciliation. I felt like I was burying a friend that day. Shovelling the dirt into the coffin myself, until I decided to fall into the pit as well. The man still shovelling was someone else. Someone darker, older, a little more broken. Someone I really didn’t like.
I felt like I died when I stopped shovelling, and that I was now someone new entirely. Ironically enough, what I had feared so much came to be reality. Two bodies, laying next to one another, taken from me by some mysterious power of life I do not understand. God? If so, why not just take me then?
But I didn’t die then. I am the man standing here, and somewhere, on the other side of the world, you were burying my body in your own way. I wonder if the tears came to you in the same way they did to me. Perhaps you had to tell yourself some lie, just like I had to do. Some lie that let that body be one you do not recognize, or at least the living ghost as some other being.
Oh, the lies I have had to tell myself to hate you. I convinced myself you were evil, that you had set it all up to make me fall in love with you just to take it all from me. But I knew your heart, and I couldn’t believe you would do something like that. I convinced myself your friends manipulated you, turned you against me. But I knew you were stronger than that, and that you loved me too deeply. I convinced myself you were crazy, or deeply in need, and comforted myself with that. To whatever extent these were true, I made them so much larger in my mind. I just couldn’t hate you.
I am not content to lie to myself any more. I loved you, with all of my heart. And for a time, that was what was meant to be. Today, it is no longer.
I have long since abandoned the shovel for a better pursuit. I am done burying friends. Now, I’m on a bike, trying to find myself.
Goodbye,
You once-loved-one,
Gone to the world of fond memories
And woe-begotten roads
I hope to pass once again,
One day.
Our time was fleeting,
Like all things,
But like the stars in their course,
Worth following while lost
Upon the shifting sands.
Thank you
For the beauty you dispersed
Upon my path as I go,
And I hope you might remember
The favor as returned.
If nay, I pray that one day,
God might let me see you again,
To bring for you a smile once more.
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