I’m missing someone I’ve never even met.
I guess that makes me kind of sick in the head.
I’m still searching for you in every crowded room.
I’m hoping that you’ll be here very soon.
Tired of the ups and downs of doom and gloom.
Wishing we were shoulder to shoulder in a bedroom.
I’m missing someone I’ve never even met.
I guess that makes me kind of sick in the head.
–S.
It’s the salt,
in the air,
your memory,
everywhere.
It’s on my tongue,
in my hair,
your memory,
everywhere.
It’s in my cells,
a part of every smell,
your memory,
everywhere.
It runs in my blood,
coats my lungs,
your memory,
everywhere.
–S.
From 2014.
I know that we usually say I love you after we play-fight or someone brings up a topic that is still too fresh to joke about, but in every moment, serious or comical, I love you with my whole heart.
The beginning of this summer, at least for now, will be the last we will spend together.
As the days near your departure, I am full and I am hollow.
I am full of inside jokes, laughter, snippets in time, late night adventures, songs, embarrassing moments, proud moments, drives around the city, dances downtown, all-nighters pulled for assignments, the million little pieces that comprise our friendship.
I am hollow because I won’t be able to look at you across from the table at a restaurant and speak to you solely using eye contact. I am hollow because in your presence I am home. I have found shelter. I have found comfort. Life seems scarier to take on without you being a ten minute drive away.
Although we have only known each other for two years, I feel that our friendship has weathered the test of time in lives before and after this one.
I see us deep in the country at the age of five, collecting lightening bugs in mason jars and counting how long their light will last one Mississippi two. I see us at the age of eleven trying to drive an old beat-up truck and running it into a creek. I see us at the age of fifteen running away and deciding that we would live out of the bed of that same truck. I see us at the age of eighty-two at the nursing home ogling the ass of the tall, dark, and handsome nurse.
I am forever changed because of our time together. I hope in the future that we do get that apartment or house together that we always talked about, and even if fate wants us to always be separated by miles as our lives head in different directions, I want you to find comfort in the fact that I always carry your heart with me and when I feel the breeze against my face on a hot Texas day, or see the lights of the city late at night, I see two girls in a truck, laughing and speeding away.
I’ll be seeing you,
–S.
I don’t miss the lying,
but I miss the dying,
of laughter.
I don’t know what it is that you were after,
but it wasn’t me.
I wonder and wonder,
but I still can’t see,
there’s no rhyme or reason,
it just wasn’t meant to be.
–S.
Missing you is like breathing.
I don’t need a reason.
You are my favorite season.
Why my heart is beating.
–S.
What if you never left?
I saw a picture of you holding me as a baby.
But I’ve never felt that.
My mom says that you talked to me as a baby.
But I’ve never heard that.
You’d have more than a little to drink every night.
But I’ve never smelled that.
Word on the street is that whatever needed fixing, you were the man.
But I’ve never seen that.
If you ever cooked,
I’ve never tasted it.
You died. I have no memories. How can I feel a connection to you?
When we visited grandma eleven years ago, I found a box of pictures in the room I was supposed to be sleeping in. As everyone slept, I lined the pictures up on the carpet. Some were of you when you were younger. Some were of grandma. Some were of you two together. They were all in black and white.
I wished that you could reach out to me. Say something. Anything.
Let me know you are here. I wonder what kind of life you imagined for me.
Life is confusing and complicated.
When grandma died, your daughters stopped speaking to one another. I wonder if my aunt even knows about the box full of pictures. I wonder if they are collecting dust underneath the bed. I wish she would have sent half of them to me. I know that I would’ve stared at them for hours. I would’ve wondered if your smile was real. I would have searched for clues. I would’ve run my fingers down every picture.
Mom sometimes tells me stories about you that she remembers.
I know what it is like to love a person you’ve never met.
I know what it is like to miss a person you’ve never known.
Grandpa.
Where are you?
–S.
Sometimes,
I wonder,
Can a person die from loneliness?
My ceiling fan stares back at me.
I am no closer to the answer than the last time I wondered.
–S.
Sometimes,
it feels like I have missed you for a thousand lifetimes.
Always,
almost having you.
Never,
completely.
–S.
I was disappointed to find out that nothing had changed.
That within me there still lived this thing, something that always wanted to please you.
I hate that and that is the truth.
I can’t be your friend. I actually don’t want to be.
I would be – in an ideal universe where my head could un-think what it thought about you and erase all of the memories.
I would be – in an ideal universe where my heart could un-feel what it felt for you.
I would be – in an ideal universe where my soul didn’t feel like it was supposed to be connected to yours forever.
That is what I will miss the most – my friend.
For most, well all situations, I usually say that I wouldn’t change anything about the way the events played out because of the experience and the lessons that I learned along with it.
But, I would undo this one.
I want you to know that I would undo it all to ensure that we could always be friends.
As with most things, my mind added fresh paint over the pictures of us, the memories of us, the fantasies of us, the daydreams of us.
My daydreams and fantasies creating the perfect encounters.
However, they never actually existed.
At least not in the way that I painted them to be.
In another life, maybe.
In this life, never.
–S.
Excerpt from a letter that now almost seems like it was written in a past life.
I’ll miss your stories. I’ll miss fighting with you.
I’ll miss your deep voice. I’ll miss knowing you.
I’ll miss hearing your smile through the phone. I’ll miss you calling me on your lunch break.
I’ll miss falling asleep to your text messages. I’ll miss waking up to your text messages.
I will miss everything so fucking much.
God, it’s really over.
My heart is so heavy.
It is so so tired.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 