You keep moving; I have to stay still.
For months, I’ve convinced myself that I won’t miss him because I always knew he was leaving.
Online conversations, emails, letters, and the occasional phone call: this was our relationship last year. I had forgotten what it was like to be kissed. No one had ever held me until I fell asleep.
The thought of him coming up began to frighten me; I had gotten used to my freedom and worried he wouldn’t fit into my new lifestyle. I panicked and tried to figure out the appropriate way to break up with someone two thousand miles away. Every time I talked to him, I wondered, “Will this be it?”
It never was.
When he came in January everything changed. All the anxiety and fear disappeared when I helped him move into his apartment. He was here. He had changed his whole life to be with me. Suddenly, I felt like I was worth something to someone, that I was profoundly and truly loved. I fell in love with him all over again. If he was willing to give us a try, I would be too.
I didn’t have to try for long.
I wake up to him kissing me. I smile at his sleepy eyes and kiss him back. We stopped caring about morning breath a long time ago-kissing is more important.
He trusts me enough to let me give him haircuts. I am never more careful with anything than when I am cutting his hair.
We dance like idiots to Junior Senior and Joy Division in his room. I am not embarrassed.
I am still nervous every time I undress in front of him, but I no longer ask him to turn the lights off. He doesn’t squirm when he sees my body; he smiles and gives me the softest kiss you can imagine.
After the Fourth of July, this will all end.
I always thought that deciding to end things when he left was a very mature decision. Now it seems calculated. Cold. We have an expiration date and there’s nothing I can do to change that.
Once, I asked him, “What will it be like when you go?” He confessed he had been wondering the same thing but didn’t want to talk about it because it made him too sad. I can’t ignore it: everything we do has become bittersweet.
I want to run my fingers along his face and memorize his features. I want to photograph him in every possible light. I want to write him notebooks full of poems.
But most of all, I want to bury my face in his chest, clutch my arms around him, and beg him to stay.