Where I Wait For You by Lauren Alexandra

He’s just a friend, famous last words. If you’ve ever spoken these words, I know you understand and it hurt you. I understand, and I want to say I’m sorry. This love is a mixture of hash and softness that soothes your soul and fractures it all at the same time. It becomes hard to separate the love from the pain, the people you hurt rest in crimson on your skin. Do the wounds ever heal? Does it matter?

This story doesn’t have to be sad though, and as you laugh at him dancing around the kitchen you don’t want it to be. But some things you just can’t control.

“Dance with me.” He takes a hold of me, looking into my eyes with his smile. I can feel my face is hot from laughing and I know I’m probably bright red, but as he dances around I only laugh harder.

“I would’ve played this song sooner if I’d known you were hiding these dance moves.”

His laugh is warm, the mall kitchen our audience. I’ve been here for days now, my own home forgotten He looks at me like that and I wish I could understand what he keeps behind his eyes. I used to tell myself that love doesn’t live here, not after everything we’ve been through. But as we navigate around his flat together I can’t help but think that, if there is no love here how do we move like this? As if we’re in sync, two planets gravitating close and far in a way that makes sense in a way that makes my soul glow. But what are we orbiting around? We started off as friends, a look and an introduction. Nothing crazy, so how did this man take everything I started the year with and break it down like this? My year wouldn’t make sense without him now.

It’s December and outside the city shakes in the cold winter air, snow dusting the path and filling in the cracks. Back at this small café, I think to the first time we went out together. Warm drinks and laughs and a feeling it was going to hurt when he finally left me. Now I sit here knowing I’m the one who will leave. You have to understand, all he has to say is that he wants me to stay and god I’ll stay. I’ll stay here forever, I’ll stay wherever he is and keep trying to show him this is love when I make him a drink in the morning or when, or when we kiss like that. But he can’t and he won’t ask me to stay, the one time it matters he can’t bring himself to be selfish. The warm embrace of the café tightens around me, why is it so loud in here? Why am I here and not with him? There is always something between us, this space of What If that pulls us and pushes us like the tide.

Sighing, I see no new notifications sat shamefully across my phone. I feel like a secret, tucked away here behind freshly brewed tea and warm lighting. He hates waiting but always expects me to wait for him. It’s all I do and in that time my mind pokes and prods at me and asks me, is this what you want? Is this how you want to define love? I shift in my seat and the wound crackles, my heart hissing in pain as my mind just sits by and watches. My mind mutters, what did you think would happen?

Deciding to kill time by walking around the city centre my chest feels full and empty and flinches at my surroundings. I can’t help but to think of my ex, and how my anxiety seemed to float up and out of my body and let me breathe for just a moment when he was around. Since we broke up, I haven’t felt that ease in a long time. I wish I could explain this new thing, this more than friends but not a relationship mess I’ve settled into. I can be sat there feeling my heart beat in my bones and my veins and on the surface of my skin and he can be right beside me, clueless. He’ll say something and it’s like when you’re at school and get the answer wrong and even though no one but you knows, you feel ashamed and shy and all you want to do is retreat. But where do you go? Into your own mind, and there I trip and stumble over vines and weeds that only make me hurt more. The anxiety I feel transforms into frustration as I walk around in circles, wondering why he’s taking so long and why I couldn’t have just been with them. Feeling like a dog that’s been hit I retreat to the underground of the metro, the familiar movement and sound telling me this is home. The train pushes into the station, moving at its own pace as people swarm around it with needs and expectations. I step on, the doors harshly slamming shut behind me. Is this my story? If I’m the main character then why does it hurt so bad. It doesn’t have to be a sad story, but you’re there like ropes in my mind.

So to there I’ll retreat, I’ll wait for you inside my mind. Just promise me if by the time you come looking for me I’m covered in moss and strangled by roots and branches you’ll at least pretend to be sad.