I Wonder What It Will Feel Like To Miss You

I wonder what it will feel like to miss you. Will my heart ache in my chest, the pain pulsing throughout my entire body? Will I feel empty, like a small part of me has gone missing? I’ve never needed someone the way I need you, never had a love taken away from me by distance.

Will it feel the same when you tell me you love me over the phone? Will the peacefulness of those words still floor me from thousands of miles away? Will I feel calm when I hear them, or will they become warped into an intense kind of pain, transformed simply because I want so desperately to watch them spill out of your mouth and can’t? Will I still hear the inflections in your voice, the breathlessness you always get when you speak those words? Or will they remind me of the distance that separates me from you?

What will it feel like to not kiss you? To ache for the way our lips fit perfectly together? How will it feel when you aren’t there to make my tears go away with one embrace, when you aren’t there to tug on my lower lip, reminding me to come back down to earth, when you can’t wrap me up in your arms and kiss me passionately, your hands traveling down the small of my back to steady me after a long day of work? I’ve never been kissed the way you kiss me, never craved another person like this.

What will I do when I miss your hands? The way you use both of them to cup my face and tilt my head up before you press my mouth to yours, the circles your fingers trace on my back after I’ve been on my feet all day, the way you grip my hand tightly while we lay in bed sleeping? I never thought I’d be dependent on them. Will I want to cry when I miss your eyes? How they pierce into me, watching my every move, steadying me when I sob, laugh or yell, the way they survey me approvingly even when I lay curled on the floor in sweatpants and dirty t-shirts? Will I die a little when I begin to forget the exact hue of green they are, the different shades they take in the light?

This morning as we lay in bed, my suitcases scattered around the room, these are things I thought of: the ways I’ll miss you. I laid my head on your chest and breathed in, trying to memorize how it felt to be wrapped in your arms, our hands entangled, breathing in sync. You have been more than I asked the universe for.
A few days ago, you called me an angel. We were in bed and you tickled me until I laughed like I used to when I was a kid. You told me that my laugh made me look like an angel. I never told you that you were mine. Even thought that’s the truth. You made me believe in love again.

When we said goodbye today, I hardly cried. My suitcases already jammed into the trunk of the running taxi, my fingers trembling, eyes blinking back inevitable tears. You told me that you loved me and held my gaze for a long time before we finally parted. I walked away, but every time I looked back, you were there: smiling and loving me.