I Wonder If The Walls Are Marked With Us

Looking up at the apartment we used to share, I notice someone else inhabits it now. And maybe it was never really mine, but it felt more like home than my own. There were moments when I was there and my heart felt like it was where it was supposed to be.

I wonder if they feel the love that we shared there. I wonder if late at night when they cook with each other, they almost see when we used to do that too. I wonder if they turn on some weird song that makes them laugh like we did. I wonder if they slow dance in the kitchen and wish that these moments, that were few and far between, would never end.

I wonder if they can tell that we spent so much time there because we didn’t need to be anywhere other than with each other. I wonder if they know that the period of time I was with you, I grew so incredibly much because you taught me a lot. I wonder if they can tell that we also got to a point where that growth meant that we started to outgrow each other. Even though I so desperately wanted to hold on.

I wonder if they hear the anger that overshadowed a lot of our memories. I wonder if there’s still a scratch in the sink where I smashed that plate because you couldn’t be bothered to do something so important for me. I wonder if their neighbors, that used to be ours, told them about the explosive arguments that sometimes ended with you punching our shared wall. I wonder if the disdain that was slowly growing between us is so palpable that they had to scrub the walls of our memories.

I wonder if they smell the alcohol that used to seep out of our pores from nights out. Those nights when we used to throw caution to the wind and drink until we weren’t mad at each other anymore. I wonder if they smell the fast food that used to litter the floor of our living room and the garbage we had to clean up in the morning. I wonder if they know that the next day we couldn’t leave the bed because we were too hungover to be functional adults that day.

I wonder if when they run their hands over our couch, the one you sold to them if they slide over those same grooves that I used to run my hands over. I wonder if they sit on that couch, with one of them holding the other and think about the same things I did. Things like ‘is this really what love is’ or ‘am I completely kidding myself here’ or ‘is this what they consider a toxic relationship?’ I wonder if they listen to each other’s heartbeats and for a moment they really do think they’re in love.

I wonder if they can see the place where my heart broke. I wonder if they can see the place where my tears hit the floor as you told me we were done; even after you convinced me the day before not to end this. That moment will forever be seared into my brain and I wonder if somehow, they can see it too. I wonder if those walls do talk and tell them about the ghost of the couple who used to live there before.

I wonder if they somehow know that even though we ended up not being a match that the apartment they live in wasn’t ever one I regretted calling home. I wonder if maybe they feel the hope that we had when we started there.

All I hope, at the end of the day, is they love that place as much as I did even though it wasn’t my forever home.