I Remember Our Last Day Together Like A Song Stuck In My Head
I know that the love I wish we could have had was as unattainable as the strength we had in us to hold on.
By Ali Guerra
Remember when we talked about how we would spend our Sunday mornings? The way you described that big pot of coffee and our legs intertwined underneath your bed-sheets. I remember almost every conversation we’ve ever had in pure detail, even the way your eyes looked when you told it; half-open and darker than I’d ever seen them.
I know that the original plan was to move on from each other, forget the way our fingers seemed to link perfectly together in the car when one of us built up enough courage to initiate. I know that our time had run its course a long time ago and the third time probably isn’t a charm. I know that we were supposed to meet new people, but I have, and they are nothing compared to you. I know that you are oceans away from me, in a place where time gravitates in a different direction, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. But what if things had worked out differently if I had stayed?
And, now, I am sitting outside in some secluded place on my campus when I am supposed to be in class and I am writing about you because I can’t stop entertaining thoughts of you and I, of returning to the place where I’ve felt the happiest. I think of this place when I am alone in my room and my friends have all gone out and I think of this place after I’ve spent the night with a boy who has not tried to win my heart, only memorize the way my hips move aimlessly under his sheets. Sometimes I think of it when I am missing you and those times I remember how it used to be a place of heartbreak and pain.
I remember the last day we ever spent together like it is a song stuck in my head. When you asked me out for coffee but you didn’t speak and neither did I. I remember this day because it was one of the last days before I would leave again and we never talked about what would happen. So, we sat soundlessly in the coffee shop and I sipped on my straw in-between intervals where I would look up at you when you were looking down and I felt you looking up at me when I was looking down and it felt like my heart was going to fall out of my chest.
We knew what we had to say.
When you dropped me off I asked you to walk me to the door, for what we both knew was going to be the last time, and I kissed you softly on the cheek. I turned around and watched you leave.
I still think about you sometimes even though there was a long period of time where I felt nothing but hatred towards you. Sometimes you pop into my head at random moments and for a while I tried to pursue men that reminded me of you.
I know that the love I wish we could have had was as unattainable as the strength we had in us to hold on. And I know that sometimes the planets don’t align, and the stars you see in the sky when you’re infatuated with someone are just figments of light fluttering through an empty galaxy, silently and delusively, glistening in distance.
And that sometimes we see what we want to see.
But whenever there is a period of solace in the midst of a busy life, you’re on my mind. We are all molecules that are constantly breaking apart and stringing together again. There is a reason for this. There is a reason we met when we did. I was destined to go a separate way.