There was a time when I was hopelessly in love with you.
I remember that and I think that you remember it too.
You and I were a wildfire, once. Blood pumping and bodies meshing and minds connecting and lives overlapping. We were mad about each other when we first met and it's a time that I will never forget.
But I think we both knew it wouldn't last.
You and I were too similar to ever make it work: obsessed only with meeting someone just like ourselves, obsessed with decoding our own psyches through the eyes of someone else.
We petered off. We fizzled out. And yet we stayed here, plugging the same old worn-out numbers into a formula that no longer worked.
Because the truth is, I'm not brave enough to leave. Because I'll miss having somebody to love.
I like having someone to text nothing to. Someone whose day I can check in on, whose life I can digest. I like hearing the intricacies of your early morning meetings and your long, unyielding commute across town.
I like having someone to care about. Someone whose back I can rub when they're hurting, whose hand I can hold when they're fearful, whose life would be a little less phenomenal if I did not happen to be in it – whose days would be a little more dull.
I like having your body lying next to mine. Having someone to latch onto in my bed, to intertwine my tired limbs with, to touch in simple, ordinary ways. I like pecks when we're heading out for work, I like hugs when I come home to your arms. I like having somebody to touch, because it's all too human of a need.
I like having someone to belong to – even if our fire is burning down and our minds are drifting onward and you're not always entirely present when you're lying beside me in bed.
I like having someone to show love to, even when that love is growing stale.
And so I wonder, how much longer do we stay here?
How many more times do you text me during your commute, how many more mornings do you wake up beside me, how much longer do we go on playing make-believe simply so we both have somebody to love?
And at the end of the day, is it really the worst thing we could be doing?
Isn't this better than a life without love?
