I Never Know What To Say When People Ask Me About You

Tamara Bellis

I never know if I should call you a stranger. But how could you be a stranger when I know too much about you? How could you be a stranger when I told you my deepest fears and feelings? How could you be a stranger when I still see you and recognize every little thing about you? I still remember all the details. All the memories.

I never know if I should call you a friend. Because we’re not really friends. We don’t call each other and chat about our lives, we don’t talk to each other about who we’re dating, we don’t meet up for coffee and talk about work, life and our families. We don’t talk at all. We just act cordial when we see each other but we don’t know anything about each other and maybe we don’t want to know because knowing too much could potentially hurt us. I can never call you a friend because to me, you were much more than that.

I never know if I should call you an ex. Because technically we were never in a relationship, at least one that people knew about, we don’t have a lot of pictures together, we didn’t go on trips or said I love you but we had something real. Whatever that was. We had something that could have been love but it didn’t really go very far. We stopped. We paused. We took ten steps back. And even though you weren’t an ex, heartbreak songs still remind me of you. Even though you weren’t an ex, I still miss you from time to time.

I never know if I should you call an almost. Because that’s what you were, an almost lover, we almost made it but then I refer to almost as something of the past, something that is no longer in my life, something that I forgot about because it didn’t mean anything to me. But you weren’t an almost for me, you meant something. I was sure about you. You weren’t someone I wanted to forget and you weren’t someone I wanted to let go. You’re still not someone I want to forget. You’re still not someone I want to let go but you gave me no other option. I had to move on but I will never call you an almost because I wasn’t sure about anything as much as I was sure about you.

So when people ask me about you, I never know what to say. I don’t know how to describe you or describe us. I don’t always find the right words to tell them how I truly feel. So I just say that we don’t really talk anymore and I’m over it but the truth is it all still haunts me, it all still hurts  and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Time hasn’t changed a thing. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.

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Writing makes me feel alive. Words heal me.

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