writing you out of my body

i still write about you. less and less now, but you're still there. especially in times like this. especially since i dreamt of you. i can't forget.

just today i wished for you. just today i thought so long and so hard about you, i half expected my phone to ring, just because you always know. just today i craved you. i told myself cruel truths about you to curb the impulse. i've never done justice to the enormousness of our relationship, which i suppose is a testament in and of itself. i'm sorry. i'm sorry for you and for us and a little bit for myself.

i can't forget you because you spent a night with one hand, your right, resting between my thighs, the way one does when it's cold out and you're trying to warm up your fingers. not demanding or expecting anything - i was suspicious. at one point you did squeeze my leg and tug it tighter to you, but then nothing. i realize you were only half-conscious (unlike me). this was probably the most comfort either of us has ever given the other.

the day we found out angelica died you and i had sex, on your bed, covers not even pulled down, still mostly clothed. i was wearing a black lacy tank top my parents gave me for valentine's day, i think it was that same year. they gave the same shirt to emily. (since then they've mostly given us socks.)

the day we found out david died you went incommunicado for a couple of hours. you wouldn't answer our calls and we didn't know where you were in cruces. you promised to come up as soon as possible - by then you knew you were leaving school anyway.

i've told the story of how you called me that night many times. it still stands out as one of the moments in which you were kindest to me. i never thanked you properly. i don't even know if you know that's the only way i slept that night. it was the most alone i've ever felt and you helped me get through it and you might not know even that.

and. and then. you were the one who told me about jonathan's death. i'm not sure how that fits, but it does. i'm not sure what now, what next.

i really really thought you were gone for good this time. honest. but here you are back again. and i don't know what to make of it. i was young and stupid when i said i wanted you in my life for years to come. but now, five years later, you're still here. WTF?

(you're my johnny, you know. the way sarah feels is the way i imagine i'd feel if something happened to you. you were always one we suspected might fall victim to something - you don't sleep, your driving is atrocious, you're all kinds of emotionally fucked up. and still i loved you. and still i think you are beautiful. mana says you are sorry for what you did to me. i am thankful. she may just be applying salve to my ego, bless her heart. or it may just be years before you figure out what she already knows. i hope i'm not around to find out.)

i'm trying to write you out of my body. trying so hard to write you out of my life. if i write you down enough, if i lay you out in 2-D, will you stick? can i shut you in a notebook and leave you there? please?

you make me ache.