Things I Should Have Said To My Ex

By

I fell in love with you the night we danced on that hill. I sobbed in my mother’s arms when you took me home and she went on the defense, ready to tear you apart for hurting me. And I had to explain my tears. That you didn’t hurt me. But it was the moment I realized you had the power, the meaning in my life, that you could. And it was the scariest thing I’d ever felt.

Even your stupid sweat smelled good.

I didn’t realize this was a possibility. But I would bury my face in your armpits, taking all of you in. After hikes or fucking, you still were the kind of thing I wanted surrounding me. Saturating me. We were a combustion of chemicals in the best way. We were high school textbooks. We were tenderness and pushing me against the door. We were sweat that smelled good.

That night you called me drunk in college split me down the middle. It was the year of my turbulence, of my broken pieces finding a way back together – not even a result of you, but things you still don’t know about. Things I’m not ready for most people to know about. But you called and unraveled me even more. I was tectonic plates shifting. You were the 9.0 Quake I wasn’t ready for. The butterflies that sprang forth when I saw your name appear on my phone got slaughtered as we continued. I shouldn’t have answered.

I wish I never answered.

I cried in front of all three of my roommates. You don’t know that. But that call still haunts me sometimes.

In Hawaii, I rode a horse with your name. I flinched each time the instructor said it.

The night you got stranded in Los Angeles so I picked you up from the airport and took you back to my dorm, I stayed awake the entire night. I wonder if you were too.

That night on the golf course is one of my favorite memories. To this day. I hear Jupiter Love and it rushes back. I become goosebumps and shooting neurons. Shooting stars. You were all I could see the whole night. You were my constellation.

Thank you for all the talks.

I was so mad at you when you went to Paris. I ignored Skype calls. It was selfish. And I was disconnected. I’m not sure if things would be different if we’d had the summer together.

I’m not sure of most things. But I was sure about us. Then. At one point.

Losing you was like losing an arm, even if I was the one who called for amputation.

I still have phantom limbs trying to find you in the night.

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