I Was Going To Tell You That I Loved You

Every single day, every waking moment—in the split second before the phone call ended, in the final glance before I closed your front door behind me, in the final wink before my eyes closed for the night. The words teetered on my lips and danced with the promise of forever. My lips were the prison guards to three words that begged and pounded on their cell door to be released.

I rolled the thought over and over in my head until the words sounded like nothing. I envisioned how I would say it; how I would find the perfect moment, how I would know that when I chose to tell you, you would say it back.

But I waited.

I trusted that I would have days, weeks, months, and years at my disposal to tell you just how beautiful you are. Every kiss was part of an endless pool of kisses that I could dive into at a moment’s notice with a simple touch. Your body was the warm welcome I could count on when days were bleak and dark. Inhaling your scent filled me with a ravenous buzzing that beckoned me to melt into you. I didn’t care that I’d fallen for you so quickly; I didn’t listen to what people told me. I knew you. You were unfailingly good and true– and I was intoxicated.

How was I to know that you planned to take it all away from me the moment my back was turned? How was I to know that I didn’t fall for you, but you pushed me, only to send me crashing down to rock bottom?

I was so blissfully lost in you that I never saw it coming. You looked at me with a cold, dead look in your eyes and said, “I realized that I don’t like you as much as I thought I did.”

It was in that moment I realized that your eyes weren’t blue like the ocean, but empty and cold like a shark’s as it eyes its prey. Not blue like warm, tropical waters; blue like a frozen lake that would break your bones as soon as it broke your fall. Your eyes pierced my heart and watched me bleed out in front of you. Fountains and waterfalls of long-protected emotion let loose in a violent outpour so strong that I couldn’t stop it if I tried. I never thought it would end.

It has now been a week since you drained my world of color, but I’ve stopped bleeding. You ran my soul completely dry. I imagine my veins as shriveled strands of yarn floating in my hollow insides, my heart managing the occasional thump to remind me that I’m alive. Every breath feels like inhaling molasses: slow, painful, and impossible. I haven’t felt a thing in days.

I can’t remember how it felt now, but I know that before this, there was a time that I felt things. There was a time I couldn’t picture my future without picturing you.

There was a time I knew that at any moment; I was going to tell you I loved you.