I dreamt of you for longer than I’d like to admit. I mean sometimes, I still do. I like to think if everything were different, if I weren’t miles away, if you weren’t searching for something you already had, I’d be able to tell you “I love you” without remorse for my dignity and your dissatisfaction.
I think often of how we broke up. I think about the long car ride, your head on my shoulder, your hand on my thigh—the silence blamed on being tired. I think about arriving at your cousins’ house, your silence, your inability to come right out with it. I think about how I wouldn’t stop saying “ok,” about how I begged in my mind for you to get out of my car. I think about your relentless apologies. I think about you playing with my necklace. I think about how you lingered, waiting for me to ask you to stay. I think about you calling me a “sweet girl.”
A nickname for a dog you just don’t want.
I think about the car ride home in silence, how I watched those Arizona hills—the same hills I watched in awe the morning after the first night I spent at your house…I think about how I screamed at God for giving me you, but not giving you the ability to want me.
I think about four days later…my mouth on my friend’s, how I instinctively thought about mine on yours, how that didn’t stop me, and I think about my justifications. None of which makes sense four months later.
None of which even made sense then.
I think about how I wish I had never even touched him, how he was nothing in comparison to you, how it only really hurt me to have done what I did. I think about how I wish I would’ve begged you to stay. I think about how I wish I had never met you at all.
I think about your family and your friends and your house and your small town and it corrupts my soul in its entirety because I will never know any of it as intimately as I briefly did.
And most of all, I just think of you. Of your smile, of your eyes, of your tattoos, of your hands, of your kisses—just you.
I think I would have loved you for a lifetime.
I know that some part of me always will.
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