Post you

i wonder if year-old heart ache ever gets better. 

i wonder about the days when you no longer trip up my memories or tip-toe your way into every single one of my fantasies. because you're with her now; the girl who snaps artys-fartsy photos of you throwing your hair back laughing on picnic blankets with the caption "couple goals", branding you, marking you as hers. the girl im sure you shared many of our-firsts. that rocker-girl with the nose piercing and leg tattoos. 

im mourning a never-love lost. im mourning your face-splitting grin staring down the barrel of the camera lens with your arm around rocker-girl by your side. and i cant help but wonder, is she everything i couldnt be? always fun? always quirky? already mature and ready to give you everything you deserve? the feeble comparison and my petty jealousy constantly eat away at my seams.

sometimes, well, most-times i think of us like make-believe. it doesnt feel real, we werent real. maybe i had dreamed about the million and one different ways we would migrate out of this country together. maybe i had dreamed you standing in the middle of your living room, feather duster in hand: acting out mrs doubtfire like your biggest debut. maybe i had dreamed how it was impossible for you to break my heart. 

if this is what post-you is meant to feel like, i wish our lives had never entwined. i wish you never tickled me with your patience or caressed my skin with your kindness. i wish i had never felt our almost-love, our sort-of maybe. i hate that i was just an option for you, and i had thought of you as my only.

but remember how i thought i was your first? remember how you told me they wont know us, like us? remember how we stumbled into the night with your soft giggles pulling me from sleep. oh God, what i would give to hear you parading in character voices keeping my bones so warm. 

i dont think i ever understood the word ache until i met you, because i still do. i ache for all the lost time that stretches out between us. i ache for the memories we never got to live out. i ache for the girl i thought i could be, for you. i ache for everything that could have been, would have been, should have been. i ache for you.