Writing to reach you
My eyes are still drawn to the corner of the room in this downtown coffee shop where you sat and told me you liked my poetry with a giggle. The corner that always has a college student in it for the same reason you always liked it,
“only outlet in the room.”
You said with a smile as bright as the light that sat directly above us making your laptop screen hard to read anyway. Should have seemed symbolic all the effort you put in to getting this seat for it to still not satisfy you. At some point I thought for sure you would give up and just sit somewhere else, but you would always tell me.
“sometimes you just gotta suffer to have what you want.”
I told you I would use that line in a poem one day. You said to quote you, but you didn’t say I had to in the poem. So at the end of every open mic night I would direct the attention towards you and say ‘my Muse everyone.’ and you would wave with a blush.
One day your seat was taken, but you were waiting there anyway. You asked me to skip open mic and just come walk with you. You gave some crap excuse,
“I need something from my car.”
But I don’t remember us ever walking to your car which was parked five feet from the front door. Instead we just walked. At first for an hour, then two, and at the end of it all we discovered so many secret places in this town we might as well have seen it for the first time.
I still stare at the place you kissed me when I drive past it. In that secret place between the two statues where a drain tunnel is, and people climb in to tag the walls with spray paint. I remember you being so brave as you climbed in and shouted back to me as I reluctantly climbed down.
You took your shoes off and danced in the shallow water as I entered, and the look of joy on your face still makes the bad days not as bad for me when I think about it. You kept asking me to do the same till I finally gave in and got in the water. I remember being so shy dancing in front of you till you pressed your body to mine and said,
“like this…”
I think gravity stopped working in that moment. All I could feel was the spinning, the soft sound of splashing, and just how warm you felt. It was only a moment though. Then I had to cut my foot on a broken bottle and pull away from you. I cursed alot, but it wasnt out of pain. I just… I didn’t want that moment to end. I could take the pain but the feeling of pulling away from you hurt so much more.
We quickly climbed out and you wrapped your jacket around the wound. You shouldn’t have done that, you loved that jacket, but you said this was more important. Then you just looked at me and we both laughed. I miss how pure your laugh was.
Then you did the unthinkable, you laid your head on my shoulder and wrapped your arms around me. All of me skipped a beat as you smiled and said,
“you stole my jacket, so now I’m going to steal your warmth.”
And you laughed, and I laughed, and sheepishly wrapped my arms around you, and laughed, but not like your laugh, but, I, but…
I don’t like this part…
I don’t like remembering that you kissed me. Because you kissed me like I had all the air you would ever need in your life. You kissed me like I had all the joy you would need in your life. You kissed me like I was everything forever to you; that I would matter forever to you. I don’t like that, that I still taste your lips when I’m alone and trying to just breath again, and… I remember,
We climbed out of that drain and climbed into a new few months that lasted longer to me than they ever seemed to for you. Everyday you greeted me with a kiss. Like how to sun greats the day I would be bright because of that kiss. I wrote poems like flowers because of those kisses. My creativity bloomed because of those kisses.
But like how the sun doesn’t always rise on a cloudy day, you became foggy
“sometimes you just gotta suffer to have what you want.”
I would repeat that to myself as you would start to cancel dates, or just get mad at me. We would still dance from time to time and every time you would pull away it would feel like the day I stepped on that bottle. I kept thinking ‘i gotta get better at dancing -write better poetry -i gotta be better,’ cause maybe if I did I could feel like the bright days when you would kiss me and it wouldn’t feel like overcast. Where you can still tell the sun is there, but you just can’t see it save the glowing outline of where it should be.
Then you started to talk to other people. I noticed when I was up on stage and you were in your corner. Giving other people your sunny smile that I barely got to see anymore. I only ever brought this up once, and that was more times than you wanted to hear it.
“I can talk to who I want!”
You were right, I was wrong. Or I should say I was wrong in how I worded it. I was so cold without your sunlight like self being there, even though you were right there. And… and I hate this part.
I hate that when your mom died you came to me. We were still together, and you should be able to go to who your with but you. I knew why you came to me this time. It’s wasn’t love, it wasn’t because I could fix it. It was because, well…
“I was the only outlet in the room .”
And we were both under the bright light of all the evidence that we were not supposed to be together, so bright we couldn’t see our relationship anymore. And I began to wish you would just move on to a new guy.
I still smile when I think of the day we danced and I stepped on that bottle, that made me pull away from you. I wish I would have sooner.
