We laid in the same bed. Back to back, flesh to flesh, breath to breath, as I inhaled, he exhaled. Eyes glued to the same walls as the clock ticked second after second, feeling more and more alive by each tick. We couldn’t be much further apart. Could it be that our love had died? Or was it that the love she thought was there was nonexistent?
It was my silence that scared me the most. How could it be that a woman who knew everything said nothing? As I laid there in my sleepless body, him doing the same. I pondered in my head what was going on in his. Why was it so infeasible to voyage those words from tongue to mouth?
The credence of his untamable behavior seemed a long way off. Is it a betrayal if one person’s desires were self-confessed, but the others were never made, not even of consciousness? What does it mean that neither “he” nor “she” could outwardly admit who they actually were or would be, if they could be who “I” thought they should be?
This isn’t love. On this, “we” can agree, but I do love this. “Him” and “I” laying here conspicuously disguising the distant you and the lost me. Admittedly, I contribute to this “we” that we are. But she no longer loves, and “he” becomes what was. I do what a “she” does when lovers must do what needs to be done before the fight is remotely won. I run, I run, I ran and now I don’t even remotely remember that damn man. Man, I miss love.
