Even Though I’m Dating Someone New, I Still Think About You

I wake every day, remembering the look on your face as my dream slowly fades and the day begins without you next to me.

I turn over to find him there, still sleeping. Is it considered cheating that I spend all my unconscious moments in your arms?

I don’t mean to. I fight back thoughts of you constantly. Every round, every hit, harder than the next; every day the ring gets smaller and smaller and the blows more frequent, but I have yet to be knocked out.

It’s been 8 years, yet you’ve managed to hold my heart hostage in a glass case on your bedside table. You look at it when you want, even while with her. Pick it up from time to time just to show you still think about it, without any intention of letting it out.

It took me 6 years to tell you I couldn’t bear talking to you anymore, and still the sour taste of possibility lingers on my tongue. That hope, that maybe one day you would want me back too.

You still contact me now and then; your excuses getting lamer with time. It still upsets him to know you think of me, even a little, enough for a text, but I can’t help but respond.

I keep it as casual and platonic as possible, meanwhile my insides are bursting. My emotions are running as wild as the first day we touched.

It didn’t take more than a wink for you to rope me in and make me yours. I still remember every curve of your body, the feel of your hair, your crooked smile with eyes half open, and the way you’d lick your lips before you kissed me; I still smell you everywhere. Even in writing this now, my heart beats unevenly, harder with each syllable.

Why have you kept me around all these years? Sending pictures and handwritten letters of times we spent together, when we were better and younger; when we were full of infinite possibilities.

Nevertheless, my breath catches at the thought of those moments when I realized you still think of me too, even if I know it means nothing to you.

You oblivious, beautiful human being whom I don’t even know anymore. We’ve been worlds apart and separated in so many ways and here I am, longing for the ghost of who you used to be.

Nostalgia sometimes gets the best of me, only displaying rose colored memories of what first love did to me. When in reality, it’s only the good that’s illuminated.

You were an idea of perfect, ingrained into the mind of a young, hopeless romantic. I may think of you sometimes, but those times are no longer relevant, just faded photographs of a girl I used to be and a boy I used to love.

You wouldn’t even like me now, nor would I like you; I’m not that golden girl you used to think I was and you’re no longer the specimen I made you out to be.

I am tarnished and worn and misshapen, but still beautifully put together with new additions. I have broken and rebuilt so many times that I refuse to define myself in just one way.

I have moved mountains and become one with waves. I have danced in the rain and walked barefoot in strange lands with the sun on my back and the wind in my face.

I have achieved greater success than either of us ever imagined and I have done this all alone. You were not by my side when I became the woman I am today and the woman I am working towards.

I am a work in progress and loving the process. With each new year and each new moment without you I realize, I never actually needed you to complete me. What once felt like my world is now just a dream of the past, and he is the present.

I wake with your fading face, but my eyes, they open, and look forward to him. He wakes not knowing what was on my mind but knowing that the love inside me is strong and willing.

His eyes see through my broken bits to find the beauty in the mess that is me. Lovingly, he cradles my insecurities and wipes away the tears of my despair, knowing that I am not a novelty.

He carries the burdens and pains of my past, so that I may walk weightlessly into the future. All the while, accepting the flaws that have molded me and continuing to aid in my growth.

He is selfless. He is kind. He is the love of my life.

He is not perfect, nor what I imagined him to be, but he is real. And reality will always overcome fantasy, yet here I am still fantasizing.

How unforgotten you are to me.