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| Illustration by günseli |
I know this feeling comes in increments. It builds up and bleeds out; it bites you little by little until it whelms you wholly with no forewarning.
He does seem like the kind of person to let someone go, or let feelings sit and brew until we could no longer recognize ourselves. But it was too strong to be left unsaid. I was tired of carrying the weight of those words, caging them inside my lungs that I could feel them jumping out at any moment.
I might be seeing him through rose-colored glasses. I got lost in delight, in the gentle curvatures of his smile and his carefully crafted words on the way he thought of me; oh don’t get me started with his mind—his mind is like poetry in flesh—I could see every corner, every space being laced with his artistry, overflowing and dripping with certainty like milk and honey, just as how he writes every word, every line in his poems with intention.
“Are you sure?” I could hear the questioning lilt in his voice when he said that. I retorted in mild offense, how could I joke about something like that? Yet all the while, I wished it was. It would’ve been much simpler, less cruel; but I couldn’t help feeling what I simply feel. It wasn’t butterflies in my stomach, but whirring hummingbirds and bumblebees coursing through me following the residues of last night’s conversation. It was like a warm cup of coffee on a rainy morning. And still, it burns in the back of my mind like the imprints of his face and fingertips.
For now, maybe this is it.
The closest I could ever get is to stay here and not get any closer. Maybe it’s better this way—to keep a mountain of space between us—and we’ll simply admire each other from afar as we bask under the same sun, but just different horizons.
There is no rush.
I know we both deserve to be loved slowly and gently—never like the unsteady waves of fickle hearts who pull back when they feel its peaks dissolve, like the ones who touch and go, and taste but never feel.
I might have to pull you out of me—unearth you from the depths of my mind until there’s nothing left but what-ifs and thoughts of what could be. But if you stay, I’d let you linger just the same.
So, what now?
