4/7/22

Highland Park

I remember when nights you couldn’t sleep and thought you were losing it, you’d turn on your Spotify playlist and do what you could to drift asleep. On nights when I can't sleep, I imagine you feeling the same way I do, and I pray for you.

And when I was with you I just wanted to curl up with you and kiss all your fears and anxiety away. Let you sleep peacefully and dream all your best dreams like that first night, which was a night that felt like we’d known each other 1000 nights. I woke up with you like I’d known you my whole life. I wanted to be with you the rest of my life. You wanted the same. We talked about it. 

And then in what is now moments in my short life, you were gone. 

You’re still gone. 

I never dream about you anymore. 
I think about you every few days. 
I do miss you a lot. 
We were fast friends. 
The best of friends. 
And then you were gone. 
And it almost killed me. 
Literally. 
I never told you that. 
But I always believed you knew. 
But then again, maybe you didn’t. 
I always wondered why you did nothing if that was the truth. 
So maybe you didn’t. 
It’s not that you would’ve saved me. 
I had to learn to save myself. 
I found out I couldn’t do it alone. 
That didn’t take away from the fact that everything you did to me absolutely destroyed me. 
Or maybe it was all my fault. 
What did I do wrong?
You told me nothing. 

And then there was hope. 
Glimpses of it. 
But still hope. 

We met again years later. 
I thought this was it.  
You’d be back.  
And you killed every ounce of hope left in my soul in an email.  
Why? Who does that? 

This year I felt the coldness cut even deeper. 
I to the park
I asked you to come. 
I knew you’d come. 
 
And you didn’t. 
 
All the signs pointed to yes. 
Hope. 
I knew you’d be there.
But you weren’t. 
The wind blew right through me like you did years ago. 
But the thing is, the wind left that blistering summer evening.
The wind... It always leaves. 

But it comes back.  
Yes. It always comes back. 
Please come back.