you know in movies when two lovers part and there's a slow motion shot of one of them walking away in the rain and the other squints through the raindrops and the walker turns around to see if lover is watching and they catch each others' backs instead? and you're like, why.
i wish we could have been so lucky. they at least had closure through the pleading stares and quivering mouths.
instead, there was.
and then there wasn't.
at least if i had that last glance out the window as you drove away, and you caught my parted lips and fingernail biting in your rearview mirror--
or listening to the soft pads of your footsteps in the linoleum hallway, and that hard lump in my throat grew tighter with the fading decrescendo of your steps and slight drag of your left foot--
instead, saying goodbye was like i dove underwater, distracted with sensory images and the rush of cool over my skin, as i looked up at you through the ripples; and as the light cut through the current, i watched your transient shape distort into nothing but crests and eddies upon surfacing. i took my first breath and broke at the empty silence of your absence.
this love letter asks you to find me, before someone else does. sometimes i forget that you don't know this, because you don't read my letters or listen to the song in my heart that hums against my ribcage every evening for you.
perhaps, given the opportunity, i would not greet you again, sweeping my dripping black hair from my eyes as i emerged from the water, reaching for your hand to pull me up, inhaling how your skin smells in sunlight--
because to say hello would only tempt another painful goodbye to your ghost.
love,
a.
tell me why
everything turned around
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