susurratim:

Imaginary

You’re the only thing I ever want anymore.

I see you everywhere. On the sidewalk. Six spaces ahead of me in line, waiting for coffee or maybe a bagel. You don’t seem like a donut type, but maybe you are. I see you in the mirror when I look up from spitting out toothpaste. In the space I skip over when I turn my head. When I do a double take, when I move slowly, you aren’t there. I see you on the bus, just one seat ahead. You’re wearing headphones and you don’t look back before you get off. You’re not sitting by the window and you don’t look out. You look ahead, always. Your hair is very dark or very light. I see you in the rippling coolness of my water glass. In the split-second snatches of dream that run away from me the moment I wake up. On television, in the backgrounds of advertisements or as an extra in a show.

I can hear your voice sometimes. It echoes out of shells at the beach. It weaves in and out of songs playing from the stereos in other cars. It laughs softly into my ear when I smile to myself. Sometimes I even think it says my name. There are moments when I can smell you, feel you, taste you. They hide themselves inside of other moments. I am showering, baking, eating, running, reading. And you are there. Breath and hands. Sweat. Sometimes I try to say your name and it hits me all at once that I don’t know it, don’t know you, have never heard or smelled or seen or felt you, not really, no, not really. I close my eyes quickly and count to ten. I turn away from the mirror, I look out of the bus window, I tell the man at the coffee shop counter that I want a smaller cup, please. I remind myself: You are an illusion, a trick, a shadow, a daydream. You are not with me, you do not love me.

But you’re the only thing I ever want anymore.