Everything Comes Back To You

Everything comes back to you. To the mornings when I’d wake and feel your heart beating through the palm of my hand. To the nights when I’d come home from work, fall into your lap, and tell you stories as you wove your fingers through my hair. To the words you said, and didn’t, filling my head with all the reasons why we were so opposite, and yet so connected.

To the way you never walked, never left, never gave me anything less than all of who you were, even when I hated you for it.

Everything comes back to you. To the first apartment where we shared parts of space as if it was already ours, playing house, pretending that we were real. And maybe we were. To the way you carved a place for me in your life with ease, even when I wasn’t sure where I fit. To the fights that helped me learn who I was because I’m not quite sure I had as loud of a voice until I met you.

To the way you showed me what real love is, because even now, I forget.

Everything comes back to you. To the feel of your hands, to the laughter I can’t help but hear when I close my eyes. To the way you look at me, and suddenly it’s not just simple; suddenly it’s understanding that people speak truth with their eyes. And as much as I crave that honesty, it terrifies me. You terrify me.

To the way I can’t simply unlove you, even when I try.

Everything comes back to you. To arguments and anger bubbling under my skin. To talking for hours and both of us wanting to understand, to know, rather than to push it all behind us and move forward blindly. To the way we didn’t love the way the world loves, but in our own, wild ways.

To the way I try to write about anything else, and then, somehow I find you on the page.

Everything comes back to you. The poetry, the wine, the gym shoes by the front door, a reminder that I’ll always be a runner, even if that means running away from you. To the nostalgia, to the indecision, to the words I said, but maybe I shouldn’t have.

And I wonder what you’d say if I asked you to erase them from your memory, to start again. Would you?

Everything comes back to you. The lightness, the fullness, the heaviness, the somewhere in-between. The way I know who I am standing next to you, even if I’m a completely different woman now. To the way I still consider you my greatest love, and should that mean something still, or should I just keep us as a memory?

Everything comes back to you, and I wonder, do you even think of me?