Respiros

If I close my eyes, maybe she’ll look like you.
But they never do.

I squeeze them shut like that might summon you.
Like if I think hard enough, I could blur the present
but it’s never your face that opens in front of me.
It’s just darkness.
And the memory of you
refusing to materialize.

If I cover my ears, maybe she’ll sound like you.
Maybe her laugh will fall into the same rhythm,
maybe her voice will soften in the same places yours did.
But it doesn’t.
No one carries that accent
that low, dangerous tone,
that made everything feel like it was about to begin
or end.

If I get drunk, maybe she’ll taste like you.
Maybe if the room spins hard enough
I can pretend I’m kissing you again.
But alcohol only dulls the edges,
it never recreates you.
No one tastes like you.
No one moves like you.
No one fits into my hands
the way you did.

I look for you in the streets.
In passing bikes, in the tattoos in someone´s arms,
In the way someone pushes their hair back, or the way someone laughs.
I swear sometimes I see your walk in the distance
and my heart forgets how to function.
I slow down,
almost praying
please let it be her,
please let it be her,
please let it be her.

It never is.

I keep thinking if I want you badly enough,
if I replay us enough times,
if I whisper your name into enough nights,
the universe might get tired of ignoring me
and place you back beside me.

Like longing is a ritual.
Like ache is a spell.

Time didn’t move when you left.
It just stretched.
Like everything after you is an aftershock
that never settles.

People touch me
and it feels like they’re touching through glass.
They kiss me
and I’m somewhere else.
With you.
Always with you,

and my body knows.

It knows the difference between almost
and you

Let this be some kind of cosmic mistake
that corrects itself.

It never is.

They say it’s been months.
It feels like one continuous night.

I don’t want a replacement.
I don’t want healing.
I don’t want perspective.

I want your hands on me
like they were the only proof I existed.

I don’t want someone who looks like you.
Or sounds like you.
Or tastes like you.

I want you.

And I don’t know how to make the world
undo itself.