To My Almost Lover: I Still Wonder About About Us Sometimes

Dear almost lover,

I meet you and the words come back like they never left me. Like your head resting against mine under the infinite night sky is an everyday affair.

We are wiser now. You talk about the woman you’re seeing with respect and the kind of warmth that reaches your eyes and the stabbing pain I always feel is now replaced with a dull familiar ache. The kind of ache you learn to carry in your rib cages like a part of your being over the years.

I don’t say I love you and you sprinkle our conversations with the glorious memories of friendship across these years, a subtle reminder of the dangerous line we’re tiptoeing on.

But you still linger in every poem and I still haven’t learned to give the future a face other than yours. The years have not been vicious enough in taking away my feelings for you. They still rush through me when my eyes find yours. So maybe we’ll forever be suspended in this space where I love you too much and you don’t love me enough.

I still wonder sometimes, what would happen if I grew tired of old patterns? What if I kissed you?

Will the sky open to new possibilities? Will we lie drenched in the promise of new found love and happiness? Or would it just extinguish the flame I had left burning for so long?

Maybe there are some answers that I’ll never get because some truths mean greater than others. My truth is that you are my best friend, you are a part of me and I would rather not lose you. So I tuck away my questions and resentments and laugh with you as we reminiscence about the past instead.

I wonder as I look at you, how your laughter rings through my soul like my favorite song and everything feels right in the world again.