Locked Away

I’m usually so good with words, but falling for you is like having an ocean inside of me but only knowing the language of raindrops. It’s like waking up and falling asleep and wishing your breath was on my cheek. It’s like driving home and craving you so deeply I can hardly breathe without shattering my lungs. 

It’s like forgetting how to breathe for all of the split seconds when your name pops up on my phone. It’s like talking to you and never wanting to stop. You make me want to pour myself out of my skin to fill all of the places you feel empty. I’m usually so good with words, but you drown every single one. 

There are no mouths that speak this language that are large enough to explain you. I was losing my grip and you just stood there, watching me, suffocating and drowning, until I couldn’t make another sound. I was losing me, losing myself, and you didn’t stop me. You knew exactly what I was doing, where I was going, how this would all turn out, and not once, did you ever try and stop me. 

Maybe that’s why I could never seem to let you back in, because you left me. And even though I pushed and pushed, you were supposed to come back. No matter how far, you were supposed to come back, you were always supposed to come back, but you didn’t. And now, I have no one, because it was supposed to be you. It should’ve been you, it was always you.

I know we’re over. I know that the day will come when your face will fade from my memory, your fingers will stop touching my hips, and your lips will lift off of my neck and I will forget I ever wanted you to be mine. 

I know I will lock your secrets away deep inside of me and I know that one day, I’lol move on far enough to forget the color of your eyes and the way they burned into me. I know we’re over, but I can’t help but imagine what it would’ve been like to love you. 

If you would’ve let me. If you would’ve chosen me over her. If you could’ve understood that I prefer your face over the sunset any day. I imagine becoming so familiar with the electricity of your fingertips that they become the current of my own skin. I imagine getting used to loving you so much, and not just in the beginning. 

I imagine me wearing your sweaters and never having to remember the smell of your cologne because it’d always stick to my skin like a fresh memory. I imagine long car rides and midday naps and trips to the beach and your body tangled in my sheets. But I have to stop because I know we’re over, I know you chose her and there’s nothing I can do to change your mind or show you how it all could’ve been so different. 

It makes me sick to my stomach thinking of her body in your arms and her sitting in the passenger seat of your car, and I feel your hand on her thigh like a gunshot wound. Because goodness, I know we’re over, but I never wanted to be. 

And yes, I want to scream at you, and cry to you, and crumble into your arms and let you know that I was falling for you, the whole time, from the beginning right to the shitty end, there wasn’t a moment you weren’t on my mind. But you chose her. 

And even if I didn’t want things to turn out this way, I know I have to accept it. And from the bottom of my heart, although you hurt me, I hope you turn out okay. I hope your head becomes a kinder place and I hope you move away and do all the things you want to do and fall in love with all the right people. And I hope the same for myself. Because I know that even though we’re over, life is just beginning.