And I wish I could express what this means to me. The chance to be who I was. The chance to live what I’ve already had.
There are moments in my head where all is lost to hopeless romanticism. There are moments in my heart where nothing exists but the passion of a love that can only be imagined.
At least these are the things I’ve told myself in the past. In the days where I didn’t doubt the emotions that I thought existed in my body.
I kiss Evaline.
Her sweat lingers on me.
It isn’t real.
It’s a memory.
I think it’s a memory.
It has to be a memory.
My head is beyond messed up.
And Evaline kisses hard and shoves her tongue deep into me. Her back arches and her fingers lock and she lets out the smallest of sounds as our love and lust mix up and become confused in the most physical of their representations.
She lays next to me.
We’re sweating.
Soaking the bed.
Both of us breathe heavily as if the oxygen we suck in can somehow replace the pieces of our souls that we give to each other.
She tells me that she loves me.
I open my mouth to tell her the same.
My eyes are closed.
I suck in the air and the words come out and my eyes open and my hands are on the steering wheel of Franklin’s car and we’re somewhere in the city.
I don’t know what’s going on.
And as the words escape my lips, they start to feel hollow. The start to feel used and bored.
Imaginary-Evaline, she looks at me and smiles. She tells me that she loves me back.
I pull over.
Get out and start to walk as if I know where I’m going.
All I know is that I’m going somewhere. And my feet start to ache and my body starts to sweat and I realize that I’ve just walked to our old apartment.
I sit on the front steps.
I’d say that it brings back memories but all it does is cause me to lose my breath. I’m tired of remembering.
All that I want is to be.
Then I realize that Evaline, the imaginary one, she didn’t follow me.
And I’m feeling that much lonelier.
When you’re infinite, you don’t think of the future. Yet, somehow, all you ever manage to do is reminisce about the past.
I fell asleep on the stoop where we spent so many good years. Curled up and aching on the concrete of this city.
I’m trying to find something, I’m just not sure what it is anymore.
I’m not sure what’s compelling me. I’m not sure why my feet move in the circles that they do.
There aren’t many things I’m too sure of at this point.
And so I’m rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
I can’t see straight. I can’t seem to move in a line that resembles progress. The present folds into the past and all I can do is experience the cruelty that yesterday provides when shown in the context of today.
There are moments when I believe that she is through with me.
There are times when I think that all I ever worked for was irrelevant.
And then I realize that I never knew what I had.
I realize that I’ve never felt what it really was.
And maybe there aren’t any goodbyes when it comes to infinity.
And maybe I’ll be able to feel something that I’ve never felt.
Maybe I’ll begin to realize what I had.
Maybe I’ll appreciate what I have.
I stretch and yawn and I look at the sun as it moves away from the sky and back to the Earth.
I look at the city around me; it feels like things are closing in.
I close my eyes and I feel that familiar sensation.
My lungs twist inside my body.
My mouth goes dry.
It’s a strange ache that crushes my heart until the beating crawls to a near stop.
Evaline is leaving me.
I had forgotten.
And it’s a full body shake as she walks out the door. I can’t quite make sense of the feeling. It’s a sadness, I’m aware of this, it’s just… deeper.
‘You know, we could have made this work.’
And I’m struggling for words. It’s like gasping for air.
And the me of now, I’d like to tell her she’s beautiful. That she’s the chorus to my verse.
Instead it’s:
A pause.
A breath.
A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.
And she’s waiting for me to say something. To make her want to stay with me. I don’t have language for the way I feel. My love is in the shaking of my hands and the weight in my chest. And for all I’m worth, I can’t seem to translate the beats of my heart.
My mouth won’t open.
My lips won’t part.
She leaves. She leaves me with glassy eyes. She’s leaving with a friend.
Packed bags and a sense of purpose.
The me of now; I know she’ll come back. Yet, the melancholy gravity I feel, it betrays otherwise.
Does she know what she means?
What she means to me?
And so I sit.
Alone.
The sun creeps through the window and I watch it crawl along the floor. There’s a static feel in the air.
There are moments where I glance at the door, half expecting her to walk back through. It’s a hope that keeps me going.
I had forgotten this feeling.
Perhaps I had blocked it out.
Perhaps my brain wanted to spare me.
I’ve been left by many women, and while I’d deceived myself into believing that I’d toughened, and that I was strong; it’s now obvious that was a ruse.
And so I sit.
Shallow breathes.
