When You Fall In Love With Someone Who Won’t

By

You were perfect. At least I thought you were.

Every gaze, every conversation, every kiss, every tangible moment was painstakingly engraved into my subconscious that was easily uprooted with the blink of an eye, the dim of a light, the smile of a stranger, the call of your name.

I’d relentlessly lie awake at night, trying to remember what it felt like to lie next to you, your sleeping body perfectly aligned against mine. Sometimes if I closed my eyes long enough, I swear I could almost hear your heart beating.

I remember sitting on the edge of your bed the morning before I knew would be my last. My eyes fixated at the back of your head that would soon meticulously travel down your body to watch the rise and fall of your chest. You were riveting, like a work of art I could stare endlessly at but still never quite figure out. I remember thinking I wanted you to save me. I wanted you to turn over and kiss me as though it were a habit. I wanted you to wake up and love me forever.

That’s what happens when you fall in love. I sometimes feel as though I had no choice in the matter, that my heart had sentenced me before I ever could ever plead innocence.

So here I am, but where are you?

Time passed as hours turned into days and days turned into months, but as I walked past your apartment, it all seemed too familiar, as though once I turned the corner, there you’d be, waiting for me as you once did not so long ago.

And so your memory will haunt me. And I will still search for your eyes while looking into another’s. And when I finally meet the one, there you’ll be, in my subconscious, easily aroused.

So tell me how do I rid the sound of your voice I’d know anywhere? And tell me how do I rid my heart of your grasp even though I still care?