Libations & Sobering Words

If only he would have burned me.

Burned me so badly I would chuckle and scoff at the "lucky" girl who called him hers.

Instead I look at him sideways, with a bit of a tilt-to-the-head, and an almost undetectable pit in my stomach that I try my best to ignore when I hear him talk about her. When he talks about flying to stay with her family for a week; when he talks about being in love, when he talks about marriage. I tilt my head and stare blankly a bit, I remind myself to blink.

I don't wish I were her.
And I don't wish I were his.
I don't even wish he were mine.
I'm almost sure of that.


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We were in the car driving back to my apartment, after having picked up a couple of bottles of wine. For my roommate & I, not for us. 
And like clockwork, I said some self-deprecating joke.

It had been months since he and I had last seen each other, even longer since spending time together, so I guess I had kind of forgotten who he was.

But then he responded and I felt my eyes wake up again, and I remembered who he was and why I had let months go by without calling.
I smirked and bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling, like when something finally clicks and you realize it.

His response was unexpected, but from him, entirely not.

I knew this is what held me for so long.
The way he saw me...I had always loved the way he saw me.
I think it's exactly the kind of thing that holds anyone for so long after the fact.


If only he said something like anyone else would have.

If only he would've been more like the others: eager to tell me who I am, eager to put me in a box, falsely allowing me to be myself, then shaming me without notice.

If only he would have said something hurtful when I gave him the chance...and I had given him many a chance.


If only he would have burned me.


But he didn't.




He illuminated me.





The distance, though, the miles, the time, makes it easy to forget.

Thank God for that.



-S