you said it in a simple way

4am, the second day

how strange that i don't know you at all

stumbled through the long goodbye

one last kiss, then catch your flight

right when i was just about to fall

i told myself don't get attached

but in my mind i play it back

spinning faster than the plane that took you

tonight even as i sit quietly at home with a broken heart

i am so immensely grateful for where my life is today. for the chance to look back and remember what i've been through and know that it is my gift, that i heal.

here i go again
i promised myself i wouldn't think of you today
it's been seven months and counting
you've moved on
i still feel exactly the same

it's just that everywhere i go
all the buildings know your name
like photographs and memories of love
steel and granite reminders
the city calls your name and i can't move on

last night i woke up from a dream. in it, i was doing something mundane when you suddenly showed up, quietly and unhurried like it was a place where you belonged. our exchange was brief, but i was left deeply affected.

afterwards, i woke up in tears. it was odd, because it's not as if i've never cried in dreams before. but the line between reality and dream was so blurred this time that after i woke up, i continued to cry. as i slowly came to, everything started to become clear--my sense of time, of orientation, of reality. it calmed me at first, but then scared me, realizing that you still have such a hold on me, in a way that even traverses consciousness.

in the quiet early dawn, i think of some of my favorite conversations with you. i remember how long it's been since i've heard your voice. suddenly the thought of no longer knowing you is so unbearable that part of me wants to return to sleep just to be in a place where we could speak again, even in a manner as cursory as it was in my dream. i just want it to be ordinary again, between you and i.

as the years go by, i realize more and more that the cost of loving you was far too high. and it is going to take a very, very long time for it to be repaid.

you would think that if you prepare yourself for the end; if you come to expect it, that your heart would be safe. that nothing could come as a shock.

but the pain is real.