I Miss The Man Who Couldn’t Love Me

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I miss the man who wants me with quiet desperation, the kind that builds and accumulates and when he kisses me I can feel it. I miss the man who touched the freckles on my face and proclaimed them a constellation, one more brilliant than any galaxy could create. Instead, you never noticed, never could hold my gaze without grimacing from the thought of what love poems were coming together in my head.

I miss the man who could not write without putting my name in ink, strum his guitar without feeling my body on his fingertips, or go to bed without my image hanging over his head. I miss the man who left notes in the pages of my journals for me to discover in moments of the creativity he so admired. Instead, you only had the capacity to talk about yourself, spew any and all thoughts, never mind that you were suffocating me with your ego, your selfishness.

“I know you,” the man I thought I missed said, but could never name a vice or even a virtue. I miss the man that tried to know me, who could look me in my big brown eyes and say, “You are terrified of being alone yet completely exposing yourself terrifies you even more.”

I miss the man that said, “Fuck the formalities and the ‘I would love you someday ifs.’ I’m not here to recreate a story that’s already been written.”

If my love is an ocean, or a mountain, or some insurmountable object, you would have rather let me erode and colonize your bullshit on my remains rather than let me remain a monument.

I miss the man with a loving heart
as bottomless as mine where only he who is not afraid of staring straight into a black abyss would not hesitate to dive in; for he knows the darkest coal makes the most brilliant diamonds. I miss the man who would set himself on fire just to see my skin glow. Instead, you burned me alive so that you could shine brighter.

The man I thought I missed never saw me because I had lowered myself so much in hopes he would love me – he never did, never could.