I Hate To Admit It, But I Still Think About You

I hate to admit it, but I still think about you.

I still think about how on our first date we ended and started a month together. Call me crazy, but I think that’s a sign. A sign that maybe we’re supposed to be together to cross thresholds. To jointly start and end things, like a happy life, for example.

I still think about your ridiculously perfect smile and deep down, I get jealous thinking that you’re showing it to someone else. Perhaps that red-headed girl I saw you with. She’s pretty, but we both know she’s just a placeholder until someone more interesting comes along. The look of boredom on your face was real. It made me chuckle, but also made me wonder if you’re reaching an age where settling means accepting someone, even if they don’t meet the long list of requirements you once had. Perhaps adventure and a different ethnicity from your own no longer matter. Perhaps curves aren’t as important as a good heart. If that’s the case, you’re becoming a better person.

I still think about what could’ve been. If only I wasn’t allergic to risk. If only I got over the feeling of fear I’ve battled with my whole life. If only out west wasn’t so far and unfamiliar to me. If only “if only” didn’t exist as a part of my vocabulary.

I still think about you every time I meet someone new. Every time they lean in, I wish it were you. I look for your gaze in their eyes, your voice escaping from their lips, but it never happens. You’re you and no matter how much I look for bits of you elsewhere, it’s always a letdown. It’s always a cheap, bastardized version of your authenticity. There’s no one like you.

I still think about ways to forget you. Maybe finally going to Barcelona for a few years. Maybe falling in love with a man whose last name I can’t pronounce, whose language I’ll never fully understand. I still think about how sad it would be to wake up one morning, in an apartment overlooking La Sagrada Familia, only to realize that I should’ve fought for you. I should’ve fought against myself and my conscious telling me to get away from you as soon as possible.

I still think about your laugh and the way you slightly throw your head back every time that happens. I still think about the way you used to look at me and how it made me feel bare and completely unable to hide anything that I was thinking. You ruled in my thoughts.

I still think about how dry you were when you knew that this wasn’t going anywhere and it makes me want to scream. It makes me want to sob. It makes me want to find you and give you hug and tell you that I understand why you acted the way you did. You were trying to protect yourself, because you were devastated. I was too, and maybe I still am.

I still think about how I need to get over this, because we’re something that will never be. You’re never going to come looking for me, in the rain, with sunflowers in one hand and an umbrella in the other. You’re never going to leave the west coast. I’ll probably never leave New York and if I ever do, I’d feel so guilty. I could’ve left with you.

I still think about how dumb I am for wishing this could happen. For thinking that maybe life isn’t such a bitch after all, but she is. Life is a bully and her punches are me still thinking about you all these months.