When You Said You Needed Space

By

You said you wanted space.

You said this without any ounce of hesitation in your eyes. This was after you had completely disregarded my request for the same thing two months ago. Where was my space when my humble fingers were intertwined with your strong ones under twisted sheets? Where was my space when your lips traced the outline of my body and when you poured yourself into my cluttered silhouette? I had let you fill every space within me with your soft voice and your shaking touch. I had let you back in every corner that I promised I wouldn’t let you find again.

This is how I think of space: space is filled with the memories of you.

I thought our memories were just like liquid; liquid that would potentially drown me in my sleep if I coated my dreams with too many layers of nostalgia. At first I thought it would just be the nights where the ghost of you would taunt my dreams. But I found you in the daylight, too. You were in every coffee cup that filled me in ways sleep couldn’t, and in every teardrop that coworkers and friends had to endure for weeks. You were the liquid in every glass of wine that my palms clutched onto for reassurance, and in every droplet of sweat as I ran towards a mental place that I wish you had left unoccupied. I had to get all of that liquid out of me. I wanted you to be out of me.

But this space is filled with the memories of you.

This is not what space is supposed to do. It is suppose to dry out every ounce of liquid within your head and empty your heart from the ache you crave to forget. It is suppose to give you answers and ease the thump-thump-thump in your chest when you see someone who looks like them walking down the street. Space can wash over you like calmness, starting from your core and spreading to every fiber of your being. Space is supposed to give you strength when you knees become too weak to run away from temptation.

But this space is filled with the memories of you.

Every space within me is filled up with written letters that are silently sent to no one. Every one of them sealed with a kiss from me to you, and every line filled with words listing out ways that I miss you. Every paragraph is lined with vacant hopes that you would come back to me and wishes that pray to an empty God that I might somehow be more than enough for you again.

I remind myself that my bones were never hollow to begin with; that my heart knew how to dance long before I met you. I use to fill my bones with stories from people I had met and places my soul had called home. I use to let conversations and quick comebacks with other boys bloom flowers in my lungs. The spaces in my ribcage were filled with good intentions, nomadic tendencies and lessons my father taught me. The spaces between each of my fingers knew better than to call someone else’s palm their home.

But this space is filled with the memories of you.

Unless you wholeheartedly want to fill me up to the brim with all of the love that we both deserve, then please leave this space and I alone.

Please let me destroy this space that is filled with the memories of you.

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