last night

I had a dream about you. The details are blurry but I know it was you. I recognize your face anywhere. It has been etched into my mind, all of the grooves and details of you. I've only seen you a few times in the last five years, ranging from just a few seconds to days at a time. I think I will know your face forever.

In the dream, you took my hand and kissed it. You looked at me with your brown eyes, the way you used to. I remember how each time you'd look at me I'd think to myself, he has the kindest eyes I've ever seen. It was part of why I fell in love with you. True, young, first-time firecracker soul type love. Grooves and details change over time, like a story. Eyes remain a home.

You kissed my hand and I felt the love we used to feel. I know that love doesn't exist anymore, and that is okay. We are both in a new place. We've ridden our own waves of distance and growth. Time itself can do wonders to both destroy and create. It's not that I long for our love anymore; I long for closure. My world changed in a moment the day it ended between us. But even before it started, you were my best friend. You were all-nighters at the local diner, endless cups of bad coffee, sharing everything we felt and wanted in this life. You were daily walks in every season, thrift store searches for our favorite books and records, sharing beers in the street on the way home from the late-night liquor store. Moments we spent making something out of nothing are what led to us becoming us. The group of friends we cultivated felt like my family, like a shield against a world we felt too young and free to accept. You and I spent years in love, filling all the corners we could find in that dingy, magical town. 

Then one day I came home from work, my first "big girl job" that would ultimately set me on a path of mediocrity that from which I am still trying to detangle. I walked in the door and could tell something was off. After a few minutes of pressing, you told me you didn't love me anymore. Your face was blank like a worn headstone, soft and sad. It makes sense in retrospect. I was going corporate and you were getting more involved in your band. You were gearing up for more late nights, more music, more beginnings. I felt like I was at an end. I was up for work every day at 6:00 am and back twelve hours later, a real "adult". My depression was weighing on you; I have distinct memories towards the end of you asking me to go out and me saying no. There was excitement all around me but all I felt was a deep fatigue for my life. Neither of us knew how to handle me. We had stopped having sex by then. You always said it wasn't me but I knew in my heart it was. A lot of this is skepticism; you haven't directly said or confirmed most of this with me directly. All you had to say was that you didn't love me anymore. Those words were enough to send me out the door, too wounded to look back.

Closure is often desperately sought after and always hotly debated. Some say moving on can happen without it, others (namely popular media and those who develop their life skills from it) say that closure is necessary for personal progression. I'm not totally convinced either way. There are things in my life that I've moved on from without closure. I've found my own closure, written my own ending when necessary, a type of fiction-turned-fact for the sake of survival. But then I find myself here from time to time, still dreaming about you. Still feeling you take my hand in yours, sweetly calloused from years of music. I can still feel your dark coffee eyes pour warmth through me. 

If I could wish for anything, it would be for that warmth to never leave you. I hope we both can live our lives finding happiness wherever we can, still filling in the corners. Being young is a profound teacher. You and I were lucky enough to be taught valuable lessons in that time, in that town. I hope we are both still learning.  ☼