[▶] for safekeeping.

late into the new year

i don't like the way my stomach
turns when i think of you

how i want to be with you just as much as i
want to be alone

i haven't felt this way in a while. or even like this at all
is this how it is falling when you're growing older?
preserving your own energy and time and space
and you becoming an increasingly almost
intrusive thought
as i type on my phone or punch the air out lifting weights or
anything at all, really
i feel like i would have been the kind of girl who checked and checked over and over again
to see if you'd posted something new -
but now i avoid it
almost scared, to
see you again.
it's an extremely confusing paradox.
i want to see you and yet i don't.
am i afraid of you or of myself?

....it probably falls to the latter.
i will say
no one's ever made me this nervous yet
comfortable
all at the same time.
being in your presence eases me, but
over a screen everything else becomes so much harder to discern.
sometimes i wonder how you found that day.
i went back the other day and realised how different the river looked at night
suddenly bustling with people drinking and talking
and so much life that opposed the
tranquility
that gently waltzed around us that day.
and i walked back along the path
and realised how far we'd walked
but i didn't even register an entire segment of the path
because all of my attention was focused on you.
it reminded me of the boats we were watching
how suddenly i caught myself and told you
i didn't even realise when the one in front of us left.
and you told me how you got detached like that sometimes too.

it's a bit much, isn't it?
you're having a bit of a long stay in my head
no, not a stay -
you keep knocking at the door with what it seems
every few minutes, sometimes hours
but i always think of you many times a day
and i push it away.
maybe i'm afraid to fall again. i don't know. i thought i was okay.
but i suppose it's only natural for the heart to be so fickle
flicking in and out between decisions and lines like lights flickering overhead
when things start to go hazy and the wiring fades
stops working, so it leaves you chilly like
the rainy days do these couple of days.

i wonder if it will be like three years ago -
where it rained, every single day
for fourteen days.
but things are vastly different now.
for one, i'm not as alone as i was then
although sometimes i still do get all alone in my head.
i wonder what this next year will bring.

happy new year, my love.
(is it okay to call you that? when i know i don't love you yet)
i hope you'll be well this year.