Thin rays of piercing light forced my eyelids open. The numbing in my left arm was less than comfortable, but more than common when I was sleeping. Sleeping anywhere, any position, (and more often than not the most difficult of ones), was what my body naturally did. Blood was rushing through out my left arm, but my fingers reached and searched for a head of coarse hair that wasn’t there. Yearning for transition of his head to neck to be in the cusp of my hand. His laugh was on repeat with the melodies of trumpets in the background. Our never ending conversations were engraved in the right hemisphere of my brain, while the feelings he made me feel were stored in the corresponding side. My left arm jumped to life, but the numbness had traveled to the rest of my being.
As weightless as my sheets were they felt as lead without him in them. He was on my chest filling my lungs. The air around him was pure oxygen. I could have gotten high off of the molecules that surrounded us. Authorities could have arrested me for being under the influence. A high that was unmeasurable and incomparable to any line, puff, or injection ever taken. My track marks were everywhere on my body, left in my stare and pattern of my breathing. His lips prepared a shotgun of this when I heard the phone ring. The sound of my ringtone echoed until the phone landed on the ground, my hand clenched. My laziness was successful, I didn’t check my phone. The blood rushing to my head as I went from horizontal to vertical was unmatched to whatever was flowing to my heart. My ears urged for his conversing, even of the most simple of sentences.
"We could just lay in bed all day."
"Go take a shower. You’re going to sit there forever and wait till the last minute to take one."
Just a few examples of how he tortured me. My temporal lobes were tricking me, hearing his voice. Sentences I had never heard him say to me His voice was like champagne, smooth and silky at times, while other times it was bubbly and light. It was secretive, as if he could get me drunk off a conversation. As if we were the only ones that could only communicate. He was voice was soft and serious with a whisper, forming the most confident of lines. Those were the moments he had my attention kidnapped. My soul would try to escape, but there was a stockholm syndrome comparable to only the most hostile and aggrivated of situations. A language of another kind was formed, it was such only a one that he and I could understand.
Then, there were the moments I see him speak to her. His voice at those moments were venom, because his love and devotion were bubbling at my skin. His syllables sank into my bones. They anchored my lungs. Spinning was my head and my feet on fire. He could make that happen, just by what he was saying to her. Her rebuttals, (because there was always argument), were always predictable and aged. He didn’t notice though, everything about her seemed to be new. She was the only source of poison in our correspondences. The disappointment was in massive quantities, however it was difficult to detect if it was because he was disappointed in her and everything he had expected their relationship to be, or he was disheartened with his lack of choices he continued to make. Every completion to this heart to heart was the same, his head down with a slow sinking sigh. It brought me down with him. If I had ever wished any ability to hear, it was in that miniature stretch of time.
The squeak of the faucet rang in my ears as the spout sprang to life as the water rushed out. I shook my head, hoping it would clear all thoughts of him. Awkwardly, I leaned my forearms against the wall of the shower in front of me. The water was running cold, but the blood in my veins boiled. My frustration centered with what I could never answer.
What did they have that I didn’t? All of them were starkly different, but there was a variable that was all the same. They all left. For a variety of excuses, but just the same, they stranded him. Each one had a unique sting. God, it was if I had even been in the relationship with them. Each had an addiction, an escape from everyday life. Nicotine was one of the worst, because she filled his lungs just as much as the toxins from his drags drowned mine. Arguments surrounding her piled up like the carton of cigarettes in the of his car.
