You can’t see the birthmark on his upper lip in his pictures or the odd joint of his right hand pinky

You can’t tell that his laughter is deep, and when he laughs, he does it with his whole body

You don’t know that his sense of humor is as shoddy as yours

You don’t know that he’s the type of person to get a QR code card for his socials

You can’t see how his hand reaches up to the top of the door, opening it for you

You don’t know that you will like him enough to laugh at his 30+ jokes

That you will love the way he dances or the way he towers over you when he leans in

That you will want to burrow underneath his skin when you see him in traditional wear

That you will try to make him jealous and you will succeed but somehow also fail remarkably

That you will love the odd joint of his right hand pinky, the birthmark on his upper lip, and sonorous laugh

You will love it so much so that you will cry on the way to delivering a gift for a friend because that is just how sad you are from knowing that he does not like you in the same way

After 5 years, you did not know that you could be this sad again

The heart is a reckless organ

But it mends well

Love has not seen the sun in years. Who is she now? In the days when Love was social, she attended many weddings. The sort where brides meet grooms who complete them, and grooms meet brides without whom they could not imagine their lives. For one day, Love did not consider that she needed completing. She did not walk around feeling like something was missing from her. 25 years seemed like a long time to function unfinished. This did not concern her. Complete or not, she was full. She did not need the embers of a smile to warm her insides. What she required desperately, she thought, was feeling the wind in her hair or the sun on her skin. She is the sun, and she is whole.

I wrote a note knowing that when it arrived I would either remain the same or change, owing to what I received in return.

I used to know what I meant to you. Not a great deal, but it was enough. Now I only know you are ashamed of me for reasons that did not used to matter. I was convinced that whatever transpired to make you have that feeling about me was outside the scope of our relationship.

I wished, utterly uncompromised by this knowledge, that you would see, the way I do, that our story together is unfinished. Maybe we can collect our expectations in the middle, far from the game, away from the gap, and close to our spirits.

It was imperative that I ask. I understand now. There will always be me and you, but not me and you together. I can put these feelings away now.

I will have no daughters or sons. I have marked the line for where they will cut a branch off this tree. I will have no daughters or sons. In this house, every burden ends with me. I will have no daughters or sons. Every child belongs to me. In this house, we make room for those who are here not ones yet to come. I will have no daughters or sons. None because I do not know what I will have them for.

“I feel unmoored, ” I said slowly, almost in a whisper. She seemed oddly terrified. Maybe she thinks I will drift away now that I have said it. I don’t recognize the fear. I don’t recognize us. We drink different poisons from life’s cauldron, and in our tinkering existence, we are all that will ever matter to us. “You mean you are unattached?” she asked, carefully maintaining a level pitch. I try to explain that I am tied to memories of people who no longer exist. That I cannot connect with the present as I have the past. I choose my words carefully. I ennunciate slowly, but my sentences bounce back. I thought I could show her my void, but I am left standing alone in this space.

“You will find a good man who walks in the word to keep you company. ” How can my peace be in a person? How can anyone find companionship in someone who isn’t here? I don’t need a distraction, I say, I just need a home for my soul.

It registered when I was young. The oddness of him dwelling in the shadows. But I had come to expect him there. The darkness suited him, but I trialed and executed him for it. In his absence, I was crutched by other diseases. The brief, destructive violence of longing. In slow acculturation, I swayed to the rhythm of the scourge, my feet pit-a-pat to white, sandy music only I could hear. I danced and faded. Twirling as pieces of me were carried on strong winds until I was wholly nothing. The desolate still lasted years. Unaffected, my mind rinsed and tumbled thoughts that in my most sober state, I could never accomplish. Paralyzed by the idea that I would never be able to escape this place on my own. This grim emptiness outrun by the notion that if I did escape, I would never fully do so. To cycle back to the void hoping that there is something in the abyss that I can collect to fill the cracks in my person. Something that would last. Something that would replace the light only my body remembers. I am in the darkness too. I am judged for it and will soon die from it. Still, I can't leave.

The time to decide is now. I stare at the clock as another minute goes by. My emotions play on my face, and I am motionless for a second before I slide from the seat of the chair to the floor. I crumple under the weight of a strange choice, forced to make a decision on a burden I never imagined I would bear. I don't want to be here, I chant, it should have been me. I am strangled by my thoughts, but he knows what to say. I can tell his speech is practised. He is weary now, and needs me to pay attention, but can he not see that I cannot breathe. I am choking on memories that now seem to taunt me. "She signed the DNR," he says. She can't go, I say with my eyes, I need her. I am reminded of the morning before, the lightness in her voice when she asked "will you be okay without me?"

The silence was enough. It felt shallow. I lay stiff and topless half-draped on him in the dark. I thought about what he might have done earlier in the day. Ordinarily, he would have attended his lectures, but it rained. He hates the sadness that arrives with the rain. Did he imagine that he would be here with me tonight? I imagined being a thought that crossed his mind. How many seconds did the thought of me last? My body lifted with every breathe he took. Time passed slowly. We were in the only place this could have happened, his room. It was cold and empty save the mattress on the floor and desk by the bed. It was unexpected. The pillows smelled like the version of him that I knew, and after what had happened, it comforted me. Maybe the Lexo I know is in here somewhere, but surely not in the body of the man underneath me. Watching him sleep, it was hard to believe that a few moments ago he was pulling at my nipples with his teeth and clawing at my hair. I closed my eyes.

I got up to use the bathroom, and I knocked my knees on the large desk. It did not belong there, but neither did I. It hurt, but I was astonished that I felt pain. Somewhere in the process, I deluded myself into thinking that I existed outside my body. Once the doors closed, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I was not afraid to be naked in an unfamiliar place. What bothered me was that my features remained the same.

I turned off the bathroom lights before heading back into the room. I looked at his resting form, and I remembered a time when our relationship was innocent and teasing, and uncomplicated by the disasters of intimacy. I took solace in the knowledge that when morning comes, when we are left without the veil of darkness, we will not remember the night so vividly. My fingers traced the surface of the desk lovingly as I ambled, it's not your fault you are here. I came to a stop at the head of the bed. “Lexo” I whispered, “take me home.”

I used to believe in "the one." Many years ago. Before the world stole my innoncence and exhausted my spark. In that time, I built. One after the other, I stacked brick and mortar to cage the frayed edges of my heart. I discovered myself, reveled in the selfish ways of singularity, and in my singleness I died. Slowly at first, but greater each day.

It was a good death, and I cannot think to revive myself.