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A voice starts, and I turn my head, knowing it’s mine. I close my eyes, almost pleading shy. I must speak up.
I found myself dreaming of Joshua trees and the smell of juniper leaves.
I rolled over and stared at the wall I have come to love. I heard the noises of cars and saw the brake lights reflect on the ceiling.
You’d been gone for three years and I still didn’t know how to accept the devastation. I’d dated someone I hated, and you were free falling in love with lesbians who didn’t want you.
I hope it’s my name whispering on your lips as you sleep next to someone else. I hope I am an awful reminder of everything that could have gone right, but instead, we both chose wrong.
It shouldn’t have started this way. I wasn’t supposed to be here without you. But the space next to me only carries the weight of my anxiety.
I stare forward, and there isn’t anything I would want more than this moment to be remembered by someone else besides me.
“Just one, ma’am?” The hostess waves me over to the table behind her post. I disagree; I don’t say no; there will be another, eventually. But there isn’t time for lies.
We were never good at believing them.
I sit down and watch my eyelids go dark. I don’t pretend to dream because you took away all those ambitions when you left, Kenzo, for your own.
I remind myself of this I dip my toes in the cold Pacific Ocean on the Washington Coast. I don’t wait for the tide to find my flesh; instead, I reach out and meet it.
You used to say how grateful you were the water only reached our knees in the pond where you grew up. It kept everyone humble, kept them pacified. But I wondered, if you went beyond the knee-deep water, I need you to tell me, Kenzo, are you afraid of drowning or swimming to safety?
The menu is placed in front of my face, but the words blend together to create a mirage of a memory I hold onto, one you easily let slip through your fingers.
“Phoebe, your train is leaving.” It is the first sentence I remember your voice so clearly. It was like you wanted me to vanish, relieved that I would be absent from your life furthermore.
But what I didn’t know is that my optimism was getting in the way of my heartbreak. My joy over those short months was clouding the sadness I had yet to live through.
All because we said goodbye, and never took the energy to stay in touch.
“Miss, are you holding this seat for anyone?” A waiter comes over to take the chair across from me. I shake my head and smile, knowing I have been dining alone for the past months, soon to be years. It doesn’t bother me; others have begun to notice your vacancy also.
It rains, and most days I spend at the cold beach, watching the fog cover the view of eternity at sea. The raindrops drizzle across my jacket and then my face; I learned to stop wiping away the cleanse a long time ago.
Outside, the windows are covered in raindrops, and the piece I am supposed to be shooting tomorrow isn’t even on my mind. I could care less about the happy family rags to riches, or in their case, riches to riches story.
I feel empty knowing they will earn more money on this public praise. My only thought patterns contain beautiful regrets and awful wonder. As I bring the wine glass to my lips, I mimic the wordempty; I find it is a new adjective to describe this feeling I cannot confront.
I dreamt of creative ways to argue with you, but the belittling comments always caught me off guard. You always enjoyed confrontation as if it was a stage, and you were the main character about to take down the villain. Why it was it a victory to make others feel worse than you?
Loyalty was poured into my system the second I could breathe. And with that virtue, I held on to every person, making myself a lifeboat.
It’s like we are all chasing a dream, and sadly, I feel like I have only been chasing after you while living someone else’s dream. The guilt eats at me until I turn off the sound and listen to the static.
Once I adjust my eyes and pick an item, I won’t eat but say it’s my favorite, so the staff will leave me alone. I’ve become excellent at tuning out the familiar world. At first, it was hard not to get distracted by others' stories, their quirks, and what made them quiver.
My shoulders roll back as I think about the last time you made my legs numb, and my hands shake with pure bliss. It was a terrible misfortune to taste you, to experience the bare rage you have against humanity.
Your jaw goes slack because there is no other image, and you release inside me like a penniless miner striking gold.
I take my time as I remember your tongue running down my neck, your heated breath between my limbs. Our lovemaking lasted over the revolving moon and some of the cycles of the sun.
A cough comes through my throat, and I swallow the angst building within my being. The present is the only place I can escape from you. Today is always safe, knowing you are miles away and we can’t find each other. Because we don’t know how to trap ghosts, we don’t know how to love with lingering hope.
We only know how to run.
It has been a long time, and I bring out a pen with a napkin underneath it; I begin to write down everything I promised I would, the good times, the great echoes, as you put it.
