It Will Take More Time, But Someday I Will Not Love You

I was once told that every cell in our entire body is destroyed and replaced every seven years. I’m no scientist, but once upon a time, I was eighteen and in love with you. Today, I’m patiently waiting for twenty-five.

When I am twenty-five, the body you once craved and touched will not remember you. My eyes will not scan every room I enter, desperate to find you and desperate to memorize you. My nose will stop longing to find your scent on my clothes, on my bedsheets, on my skin. My mouth will not scream your name or beg you to return to me. My hands will stop reaching to your side of the bed, searching for the warmth of your sleeping body next to mine. When I am twenty-five, the heart that loved you will have beaten for the last time.

When I am twenty-five, the body you once touched and craved will be dead. Long gone will be the hands that timidly explored you, and the eyes that looked at you as if you were some ancient treasure. The skin that you kissed in the back bedroom of your house will no longer be draped over me, begging to feel you again. The soles of my bare feet will have never danced on your kitchen floor with my favorite song playing in the background. The tips of my fingers won’t remember how it felt to graze your cheek or run through your hair.

When I’m twenty-five, my mind will still remember the magic of loving you and the madness of losing you. Your words will still swirl through my brain every now and again, and I will feel a twinge of loneliness and wistfulness. But, my mouth won’t taste you in every shot of whiskey, and my nose won’t notice the scent of you in every October wind.

I was told once that every cell in our entire body is destroyed and replaced every seven years. I don’t know for sure if that is true, but I loved you when I was eighteen, so I hope like hell it is.