But now, as the morning has worn on, I'm starting to suffocate again and the only way I can breathe is to write these words to you.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I've never cared one way or the other about that but now, suddenly, it means something because it's a holiday and I probably won't hear from you or get to ask you what you ate or tell you about mine and that all of a sudden seems so goddamn tragic and awful and I don't even want to look at a turkey and think about all the ways I had been so thankful these past couple of months. I was practically walking with my feet above the ground, happy and vibrant for the first time in a long time.
I was still happy when I got the news about you Saturday. I was actually relieved it was just that. That was a thing we could handle. Something being wrong or happening to you was not. I waited to hear from you Sunday. When I didn't, I thought you might have been overwhelmed and exhausted and it was probably no big deal. But then Monday morning rolled around and still no word from you. I knew you had to take care of some things and I didn't want to appear needy so I waited until that afternoon before I emailed you. I didn't know it but by then it was too late. You were already gone.
And I can't get you back. You've just vanished back into the nether and I've no way to find you. And it feels like a death even though I don't know what that feels like. But maybe it's actually worse than death because you're still out there but I can't find you and that's more torturous than if you were dead and I knew your light had left the earth. Your light is sill shining but I can't see it. The agony. The hopelessness of it all is killing me and I just want to hear you again even if the only thing you have to tell me is to kiss off into the air and you're done. At least that's something. I'd take anything.
One little morsel of anything.
But I'm not giving up. I told you that already and I meant it.
Someday you will read these words and I will still be sitting on this shore waiting for you to wash up again.
I hope it will be soon.
POST SCRIPT:
There were/are moments of today I couldn't/can't breathe. It felt like the air was thick and heavy and dripping and I couldn't suck any of it in through my parted lips. As if it had turned to syrup and if I were even able suck any into my lungs at all, it would only coat them in a thick goo but do little to give me life.
I have moments of clarity where I know in my bones that this will pass and I will, once again, read your words. The ache and emptiness I feel without them is unlike anything I've ever known and I wish I could describe to you the utter despair I feel at the thought of no more you.
It's been 6 days now.
Six days.
Six days doesn't seem like much but it's too many at once.
I keep reading the last email I sent to you. The one you actually got before you closed your account. The one I'd rather replace with just one of the 36 I've tried to send to you since. But they keep showing back up on my step. I don't even think they make it halfway to your place before they turn around and come back. They already know you don't want them or maybe you are only just not ready for them. My heart believes the latter but my head is trying to kill me with the former. I keep sending them out though, shooing them out the door on their way to you. But always they come back and I don't want them here. I want them with you. To clean and mend and enfold and love.
My words to you are all I have.
And the last words you read from me when you got home and felt the sting of betrayal from your roommate and perhaps shame at what happened (although you shouldn't) were not words of love but of playful admonishment. If I had known then how me knowing your secret would make you feel, I wish for a thousand catacombs to hide it in so that I may never discover it.
I'll never forget the grin on my face that Saturday night as I pressed send. I was very pleased with myself and stupidly thought you would find it amusing also. Oh, to be so dumb and near-sighted. I wasn't taking into account the trauma of the experience you had just endured and was focused solely on the banter between us that has brought me so much life these past months. I thought I was being witty and confident and self-assured and you would find the humor in my silly reprimands.
I don't know how you feel and I want desperately to know how you feel so I can make it better for you. All I can do is grasp at straws and my mind is running 1700 miles per minute thinking of every possible scenario, every minute detail I may have missed, every single word I may have said that caused you pain or anger. And I want to take them all back and I wish R had never emailed me with what happened because if I had never known, you would not feel whatever it is you're feeling now. A feeling I'm helpless to navigate with you with because you have shut me out so completely that I have no way back in and I might literally be dying over here. I'm not sure. My heart feels like it's trying to push its way out of my chest; the bruising on its surface so deep and complete that the blood coursing through it and around it is leaving lacerations in its wake.
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