holding hands and losing touch
i remember that day well. or maybe i just remember when it was over between us.
it was overcast, and it had been for over a week. very odd for april. you wanted to speak after i got out of class, just after lunchtime. i said i'll take the light rail, and that i'll be there in fifteen. you'd usually call, but this time, you texted. the manner of your phrasing felt different, urgent. i thought of this shift from routine with each stop and crosswalk until i was a block away from you.
we spoke under the dull, commercial lighting of our meetup spot, the kind with intermittent flickers that i'd come to memorize. you spoke little, probably the least you ever have to me. you hardly met my eyes. i tried to catch them but you'd dodge and find a vanishing point to focus onto each time. i knew something immense was near.
you withheld until the right moment for you--then, you got straight to it. what you told me sobered me up. a simple phrase. i'll keep the specifics to myself, lest i become diaristic, but it ultimately was a dirge:
i don't want to See you anymore.
and there we were, a penrose labyrinth materializing between us, moulded by a cumulative itch i didn't know how to scratch for years. around every corner were pathways to the life we were building. we were kids then, but i saw glints of possibility everywhere i turned. you did, too. as i looked towards the face i'd come to know through affection, i felt a chill push my stomach in and stop my pulse for an instant. i forgot how to breathe for a second.
you were suddenly a stranger who had access to the softer parts of me, somehow. however, in turn, i was forgetting your face, your voice, in real time, all while you were within arms' reach. i panicked. you had no idea i'd go home shortly after seeing you smile for the last time, and ask myself, did i even know you at all?
a week ago, we were in your bed. your room was always cold. you only drew the curtains when i was there. the first time i stayed over, that was how you woke me up: curtains drawn just enough for the light to nudge my eyes open. you'd then put your arms around me and pull me into your chest. your warmth came to sync with mine. i never overheated with you.
time became weird. it was always weird with you, yes. time spent with you bent. hours of conversation resembled a sustained culmination of years of knowing one another. we were different but the same. you know, i was surprised at how much we intertwined, and so quickly.
we first spoke under a warm september. we moved at a decent pace, but i hungered for you, and your hunger competed with mine. you hardly took your eyes off of me. you observed me more than you let on. you protected me, but still reminded me of the freedom to empower myself. you nourished me in many senses of the word. when i trusted you enough, you shucked my clothes with a surgical precision, before one passionate rut after another.
your third firmest words then were asking me, with a staunch imperative, to not break eye contact. the second firmest words came after several months had passed: your declaration of infatuation arrived with the harvest moon above us. the firmest were carved while i was sleeping. one quiet winter evening, in a deliberate text message, you told me you loved me.
it's funny how april and december feel like the same type of cold at times. in the coming months, i'd feel a chill outside that was just like the chill after walking away from you, parting the recycled, commercial air with my stride: forward, lover's choice, as long as you don't see my face that chose otherwise.
your hands felt new a lot sooner than this day. i just didn't know--or, maybe i did. i wanted to believe that whatever unease or anxiety came up, we would work through it, as we always have. on the way home, i traced back, mentally, any possible instance that could've set this off. was it something i said? you said? but--and i came to understand this eventually, begrudgingly, as if losing a battle--it didn't matter. i can't change the past.
were there signs, though? were you telling me in code? when did you stop loving me?
i should’ve known something was shifting when i started to remember how your back looked in bed more than your face. in slips, in gestures, in breadcrumbs, you were pulling yourself away. one day, you lit up when i told you "good morning" back. the next, well, there we were, holding hands and losing touch1.
you know, there's seeing, then there's Seeing, with someone else. you first saw me when i presented my body to you for the first time. you weren't the first but that didn't matter. i let you touch me because i trusted you, and you trusted my touch in return. i saw you, too, then. when i opened up about something deeply personal, i ended it with, "i've never told anyone this before." you started crying, and pulled me in tightly. that's when i knew you Saw me. it's a soft, writhing, terrifying, exciting feeling. you witnessed a part of me i didn't know i had in me to reveal. i witnessed something in you, too. i Saw you. we were tethered. it still felt, feels that way.
i wanted to hate you and wanted you to feel the hurt i was feeling, tenfold, thinking it would make this easier to bear and plague you with guilt. i felt betrayed because--is love not a promise? you suggesting we could be friends one day was just you twisting the knife. in that moment, that was the last thing i wanted to hear. i mean, sure, maybe, but i miss you already.
there's so many things i still want to say to you, give to you. i have gifts ungiven you'll never know about. i wanted to do a lot of things with you, too. i wanted to slow dance with you at least once. i never got to, but, i suppose we did, in twisted sheets. it would've been private either way. even in the most public displays of affection, we were still contained to just you and i, our world. you spoke loudest through gestures, but you were just as loud through your words.
i'm always going to have questions that will go unanswered. that truth will make me sick from time to time, but i'll reassure myself that it'll hurt less, one day.
on the walk home, i recalled a bit of one of our past conversations. you said you wrote poems about me and that you'd show me someday. you were humble about your way of writing, but you had a way with words. i admired your craft. you had a lot to say to me until you didn't. or maybe you still do. maybe you still have things unsaid. i guess do, too.
i wanted to write about "the feeling of knowing when it's over." i felt inspired by this song that i haven't listened to in well over 10 years. (i'm thinking an "author's note" section like this would be cool to include for #freewrite context, too.)↩