Even After All These Years, I Still Love You

Photo by Caique Silva on Unsplash

Sometimes I wish things were different. I wish that all those years ago you convinced me to stay and I let you. I sometimes let myself drift back to those days and wonder what would have happened if we had just worked out. I wonder if our paths were intertwined, would my soul still be so restless as it is now?

Sometimes I like to think that we were destined to be and that now that you’re gone this hole inside of me is a permanent fixture. Sometimes when the rain falls just right, it reminds me of the last time we ever saw each other. It reminds me of driving home behind your car and crying so much that you saw me in your rearview mirror. Then you called to ask if I was OK.

But I wasn’t OK. Losing you was one of those things I always knew had to happen but never fully accepted. It was a pain I couldn’t even comprehend. It’s a deep cut that probably won’t ever heal. It was my own naive state of mind that kept me from understanding that you and I just don’t work out.

Because I loved you. I loved you in a way I don’t think I’ll ever love another person again. I loved you in such high highs and such low lows that consistency in our relationship would have felt foreign. I loved you so fucking much that I’ve written full books on just how much I did.

You are the inspiration behind everything I do whether you realize it or not. It’s probably surprising to know that because I’ve replaced you so many times over in the past few years that you’ve been gone. The funny thing is that every single one of them had pieces of you. I just never realized it until after they left. I didn’t understand that every time I thought was falling for someone new, I was actually just falling for a different version of you.

Maybe that’s the lesson in this. A lesson that I can’t keep trying to live out our fairy tale with someone who mimics you. Maybe I need to find the polar opposite to you. Someone who doesn’t make me laugh until I cry. Someone who doesn’t make me cry at all. Maybe I need someone who stays and is consistent instead of a man who is always just one step out of reach.

Or maybe I just need you. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t work out with everyone else because my soul found you young and is still missing you.

But I don’t tell people these things anymore. I don’t tell them about how the first night I saw you I was sure and in the years since you left, I haven’t been. It’s a weird concept, pining for someone you don’t even know anymore.

The truth is though if you were ever to ask me if I still loved you. If you were ever to ask if I still wanted you; I’d say no.

Our lives have gone too far down our own trails for them to ever link up again. And maybe that’s just something I really need to accept. Maybe you’ll just be the boy who almost was but didn’t quite make it.

And maybe that’s just how this story ends.