I Thought of You

I thought about you yesterday, for the first time in weeks.

I woke up like I usually do, head clouded with nightmares. It took me a minute to gather my strength and sit up, but I did, and when I looked out my window, I could have sworn I heard someone say your name.

It surprised me, to say the least, to have you suddenly brought to my mind so soon after waking. The pain's been fading, after all. What started as the sharp, stinging missing of you has slowly sunk deeper and deeper into my consciousness. After the stinging was the dull ache of a missing piece, followed by a lighter (yet always present) yearning for what I couldn't have.

And then you became like a bruise at the back of my mind, painful when bumped. Sometimes, I'd take a finger and poke it, just to see if it still hurt, because there was something so comfortable about missing you. Missing you filled the space previously occupied by loving you, and God knows I'm terrible at having holes.

But yesterday, when I thought of you, it didn't hurt. I tried to make it hurt, banged at the spot where my bruise had been, tried to force tears, but all I felt was a whisper of nostalgia.

It scared me that I could be so fond of having a sore spot.

And then I got up and showered and blew my hair dry (it's longer now, you know) and put on a pair of jeans that you wouldn't have liked. I watched an episode of that TV show you were always trying to get me to watch and decided, almost without realizing, that you had good taste in TV after all.

But then I realized that I was thinking of you again, and tried to recoil, but there was no reason to because you weren't really there anymore, making me hurt and wonder what if.

Then I found myself in front of the mirror, thinking about thinking of you, and realizing how much I've changed since February. If we met now, you wouldn't know me. You wouldn't love me. And that no longer scares me.

If you should ever see this, I'd want you to know how grateful I am to you for being the beautiful boy with the green eyes who took a broken thing and taught her to trust herself.

But now, I lay this ache to rest, and welcome you, my sweet nostalgic memory, into the realm of my distant thoughts. I have learned how to live.

I haven't the time for ghosts, you know.

x,
   g