I Want To Run Into You Every Single Day
Before I go into today’s post, just know, I’m fine, which is usually the first thing people say when they aren’t fine, but trust me. It’s just the rain out here in NYC has me in a different zone. Got me feeling a little melancholy, and since I usually stay indoors by myself when there’s a monsoon outside, my mind is slightly more pensive.
But really, I’m fine, I’m cool, and I’m just trying some new forms of writing. Enjoy the words.
If my hot water worked today, I wouldn’t miss you right now because when we used to have the same problem, we would go down the street to the gym, not to work out, but to use their hot water. And I’m thinking about that as I take my bird bath.
Maybe I wouldn’t miss you so much if I didn’t shower at all, if I stayed in the apartment all day and did absolutely nothing. Because every time I step outside of it to do some sort of activity, whether or not I run into you is the very first thing on my mind. Then I get to my destination, without ever having seen you, and it’s right back to missing you.
Sometimes, instead of going out, I just open whatsapp and stare at our old chat, wondering why I can’t delete it.
Should the day come when I do run into you and I get to see your pretty face, I think the first thing I’m going to do is tell you that I miss you everyday.
Yeah.
That’s it.
I miss you everyday, and I hope you believe me. I hope if we see each other on a subway, you don’t mind if I decide to ride it to wherever you’re going, even if it’s not where I’m going. Because, see, the last time I saw you waiting for a subway going in the same direction I was going, I was so caught up in seeing you, I didn’t even think to do that. I rode it to my stop, which was before your stop, and I got off like I was supposed to. Foolish me.
That was last year, and I have missed you ever since. I almost typed you a message on whatsapp that night, but I couldn’t bring myself to press send.
The more I search for a reason not to think about you, the more I find a reason to think about you. Do you have any idea what that’s like? To think about not thinking about someone? It’s like a dog chasing their own tail. And every time my phone buzzes, I think it’s you on whatsapp, but it never is.
Do me a favor and get the hell out of my head. Get the hell out of my heart. Go somewhere else. Be someone else’s albatross, please. It’s been a long time, and you’re still all up in my mental and emotional spaces. I still miss you, and frankly, it’s getting in the way of some rather important things like other women who are good to me but I can never manage to keep.
I don’t compare them to you, but I compare myself with them to myself with you, and it never quite matches up; so I always have to move on. Because when I was with you, I was the man I wanted to be, and with these other women, I’m the man I feel like I was forced to be largely because you left me. Sometimes I even catch myself checking if you’re “online” on whatsapp, just to feel close to you again.
But none of that matters to you. You just need to get up out of here even though you’re not really here. Come pick up your things I keep on thinking I see but are never there in real life. Quit calling my phone and hanging up before I pick up only to realize it was never you who called in the first place. Quit leaving my whatsapp status on “delivered” with no reply—oh wait, that’s just me imagining things.
Damn it, if you’re going to be here, then really, really be here. Quit being a figment of my imagination. I know you’re real. Just show up and say something like you heard a rumor that I missed you so I can tell you that it wasn’t a rumor, what you heard. That it was true. I’d even settle for a simple “hey” on whatsapp, if that’s all you’ve got.
I want to run into you every single day I leave my apartment, and yet I never do. Makes me wonder how the hell we even made eye contact in the first place. Makes me want to go back to the days before I knew your name, where you’re from, and what you do, back when I knew nothing about you, so I couldn’t miss you. Sometimes I miss those days more than I miss you. And sometimes, I think the silence of my whatsapp is louder than the rain outside.
But those days are rare.
As a matter of fact, those days are never.
I have never not missed you. Not in the streets, not in my bed, not even when I turn off notifications on whatsapp hoping to forget.
The only thing I have done is gotten used to missing you for the rest of my life.
