Sometimes I Wonder If I Still Cross Your Mind

When it’s late, and the world has gone to bed, do you roll over and reach for me? Do you imagine my hair, still damp from the shower and strewn across the pillow? Do you wish you could run your hands through it, just one more time, and tell me you love me like you should have, over and over again?

Do I ever cross your mind?

When you’re making dinner and reach for that spatula with the melted corner, do you remember how I left it on the stove too long, distracted by a song, dancing across the living room in that oversized sweatshirt? Do you remember the smile on my face—the smile that always came so effortlessly with you? Do you remember how you pretended to be mad, just for a second, about that stupid, two dollar spatula and we both laughed? Do you remember how we kissed to the melody of that song, our stir-fry burning on the stove and the room so dizzy hot, but we didn’t have a care in the world?

Do you ever think of me when you least expect it, and ache?

When it’s morning and you stumble to the bathroom, the one that no longer has two sets of toothbrushes or a collection of bobby pins on the edge of the sink, do you take a deep breath and try to remember the scent of my perfume? When you splash cool water on your face, is it out of necessity, or because you’re trying to wash the thought of me from your tired mind?

Do you ever find yourself missing me?

Sometimes I wonder where you are or what you’re doing. If you’re happy, if you’re with someone new, if you’re going through this life without a care in the world. If you’re pretending that you don’t think about me, but maybe, just maybe, I sometimes creep into your thoughts.

Sometimes I wonder if it was easy, letting me go.

If it came naturally—out of sight, out of mind. If you could erase the remnants of me from your life without hesitation, or if you still keep that coffee cup on the second shelf, that hand-written letter in the bottom of your sock drawer, that lucky penny on the side of your dresser, just as a reminder of who I was, who we were.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever cross your mind.

Maybe innocently, when you happen across a new song and know I would have loved the lyrics. Maybe intentionally, when you drive past that hill where we watched the sunrise and kissed to the freedom we found in one another’s arms.

I wonder if your heart feels heavy when you read my words, if you try to write yourself into every story, try to analyze each sentence until you find yourself on the page.

Sometimes I wonder if you wonder.
Or if I should try to let you go.