Someday, You’ll Think to Read This

When we broke apart, they asked me if I would write about you.

I said there wasn’t much to say.

A funny thing when I had so much to say to you, but you had so little.

Instead, I surprised myself. I looked up the two men I loved before you. For once, their faces didn’t hit a pang inside me.

I miss that pang.

They showed me the lives I could have had: a family and a house in one and artistic revelry in the other. There is so much relief that I chose neither or neither chose me, because in either case I would have followed. I would not have led.

Maybe that’s why there isn’t much to say about you. For once, I led. The life we could have had would simply have been a smaller, quieter version of my current life. It isn’t nothing, but it isn’t wanted.

I mourned you for a night. In the morning, I remembered no dreams about you. A thorough inventory told me I was alright, relieved even. And when I expected to regress at any moment throughout that day, I didn’t. The next day, too.

So when I saw you in my doorway, holding a bag of my returned things, I only felt a little surprised. I knew you were coming, but I had also forgotten you existed. It only took 36 hours.

I did feel a pang, when we walked onto the sunny street. The light hit me and I opened my mouth to say, “you know, just because I don’t like you anymore as a person doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be alright.”

It took me three mental tries to force it out without a waver, without a tightness in my throat.

Then it was gone.