Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back

No one knows how much she cried last Wednesday because she was quiet about it, and to some, pain is only noticed when it is public, and loud, and obvious.

Reality disturbs some of the same people who plead for authenticity.

We may sleep together, but my dreams are my own.

It's as though you're not just the love of my life, but the love of all my lifetimes.

When they ask me how long you've been dead, you die in my head all over again.

I'm sorry you miss the person I once was; I promise I miss that person too.

I wish I could convince you to forgive the dark and create a home in hope this year.

To cope is to remember but still rebuild.

My own absence barely fazes me; because the less I post, the more I reveal and the less I scroll, the better I feel.

But we are still here. We are still fucking here.

It’s easy to feel out of place lately. Like you’re a day behind everyone else or in the wrong decade altogether. Maybe this is just a symptom of a larger virus. The disease of living through a shitty time.

There’s stability in the aftermath of instability. There’s beauty in hard transitions.

You tell me you are here if I want to talk. You tell me I better sleep tonight because the bags under my eyes are atrocious. You tell me I better eat and take an iron pill. I don’t push back. I sincerely tell you that I am trying. You believe me, and you believe in me. And that’s the precarious, precious cycle that keeps me going.

And if you knew what my mind was like before, you’d get what I meant that gray morning, when I said you were the only one who could make me forget it was pouring.

I tell you, and tell you, and tell you and you never get it. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault . . . I get it.

I spend so much time trying to outrun who I once was that I sometimes throw away the notion that there are pieces of me worth salvaging. Like the part of me that always pauses for a sunset. The part that watches fireworks, lips parted in awe. The part that walks the shoreline and collects shells for my mother. The part that tries to catch soapy bubbles on my fingertips. The part that hasn't eaten meat in years, but still thinks of my childhood home whenever I smell bacon.

You miss me? Tell me. You want me? Tell me. Because I am tired of moonlighting as the person who’s not in love with you. You’re hurting? Tell me. You’re worried? Tell me. Because it’s nice and human to have these things in common.

I don’t go to church anymore unless someone is baptized, married, or dead; but I still bless myself whenever I am about to run a red and keep the palm cross tucked in my car above my head.

It’s only when you’re in a room filled with people not wired in such a way that you realize how close you are to short- circuiting. You are fried. Burned out. Praying for a factory reset you know won’t come.

The past is not something we can simply place down on a coffee table or leave behind at an airport. The past is a part of us; sometimes for better, mostly for worse, but a part of us nonetheless. To think we can simply “let go” of the past is just as silly as thinking we need to offer up who we are today as sacrificial lambs in order to become who we will be tomorrow. It’s all so tethered and rooted that it feels fluid. We cannot fully “let go,” not really. We can’t forget, not completely. But we can accept some things will always look more picturesque—seem more serene—from a safe distance, from a faint recollection, and we can move forward. It is imperative that we always move forward.

I would have missed out on so much. I would have missed out on the person I became since knowing you.

It’s as though you’re not just the love of my life, but the love of all my lifetimes. Like we’ve been here before, like we’ll be here again.

Sometimes time, try as it might, can't keep it's word and doesn't heal you from what occurred. When they ask me how long you've been dead, you die in my head all over again.

So overwhelmed by what I need to do that my to-do list goes untouched.