stardust & silk

M A R C H.

i.

They say time heals, and maybe that's true because the bruises on your neck were quick to fade but the ones on my soul tell a different story entirely.

ii.

I've just reached out for my cup of coffee when he asks about you; and I have to fight to keep my hands steady, fight not to spill a single drop because you don't deserve it. You don't deserve to take from me more than you already have with all the spilled tears and secrets and firsts that I will never get back. I can't control those anymore but I can control this. So I pause, and I shrug and I purse my lips together as I take a sip of coffee that I can't taste; the bitterness washed away by memories of you.

I'm happy, I say instead and I'm surprised when my voice doesn't shake even as my heart rattles in my chest the way it did to the sound of your voice as you said my name right before you walked away. I sound put together and neutral; as though I've completely peeled off all the parts of me that clung to memories of you; as though the very mention of your name doesn't bring back a torrent of emotions like the thunderstorms we used to hide from.

He asks me if I'm over you as I put my coffee down, and this time I'm a little more prepared. I don't have to focus as hard to keep anything from spilling but I still bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood just to keep myself from saying anything I'd regret. Yes, I say and consider forcing a smile but my lips refuse to turn up so I keep talking, wondering if he can spot the lie. I think so, I tell him, hoping that maybe one day I can convince myself as easily as I try to convince others.

He asks me if I ever think of you and even though he's right there and I can see his lips moving as he speaks, it feels like someone is shouting those words to me from the other end of a tunnel as they echo through my skull over and over again. Doyouthinkabouthim? Doyouthinkabouthim? Doyouthinkabouthim? And suddenly it feels like my throat has closed in on itself and the very oxygen in my lungs has turned to shards of glass. Still, I try to laugh it off, turn it into a joke; it's hard not to when people always ask, I say. Ha ha. He doesn't laugh it off, he doesn't find it very funny. Neither do I.

I never learnt to swim when I was younger, but somehow I still find myself swimming in the silence that was left over and like the bottom of the pond we used to skip rocks on, I found my answer. I clear my throat even though there's nothing lodged in there and say:I don't think about him unless something reminds me of him. It sounds plausible, normal, appropriate - though it's untrue. I clench my jaw as I try to do the math, try to calculate how much time I should think of you and compare it to all the times that I do and then subtract it from all the time we spent together divided by all the time we're now spending apart. I was never very good at math.

It feels like in this day and age, we're not supposed to love too deeply or for too long; almost as if it's more creepy than it is cool. As though people were made like the leaves on trees, fading in and out of lives like leaves do with seasons. And god forbid if you were to love too hard and too long and too much, then you'd end up scorched in the process with your body covered in rope burns as you tried to stop yourself from falling.

It's not long before he asks me how often I'm reminded of you. I'm not sure how to respond. Not sure how to tell him I blocked you on every social media site, only to unblock you again at least once a day when it all felt like too much. Not sure how to tell him that I scrolled page after page on the Internet thinking about how love killed me; or perhaps I killed love - according to tumblr there's not much of a difference between the two.

It used to be that once you were done with someone that was the end of it. That the wounds they left behind would be left to heal and close and scar; that the only way to rip them open again was to physically follow them across to countries you'd planned on travelling to together. More often than I'd like, I tell him honestly, even though I've been silent for too long and he'd been staring back at me with dawning comprehension.It's kind of hard not to think about him, I tell him. Not when the Internet exists and it feels like my own heart is against me as I watch videos of him laughing with other girls on snapchat.

I don't say anything after that. There's not really much to tell him. Or there is, but I don't know how to tell him. I don't know how to tell him that it felt like you were in the gentle breeze that wafted through my window every morning, and in the warm rays of sunshine that shone down on me when I took my afternoon walks. That you were in the hollering of bar goers and in the smiles of strangers - you were everywhere to be and seen and everywhere to be felt and me, well, it felt like I was nowhere.

iii.

I loved you because you were everything I prayed for when the sky was at its darkest and the sun at its highest

iv.

Stars eat away at planets the way your smile ate away at me and I was helpless against the allure of a broken boy with so much heart I didn't know where to start to try and put him back together.