Moonlit Longing

That night was dark and empty, emptier than I had seen it in a long time. The roads were abandoned, and I cruised through the blinking yellow lights on autopilot. It was late, and I was tired, and my tired mind struggled to comprehend that the bright blue light on my car dashboard was showing the time. It was 12:32 in the morning, and it was the first time I had been alone all day. They sky was starless, but the moon shown brightly, and there was a soft song playing on the radio. It was some soft Justin Bieber ballad, something I had never heard before, but didn’t actually hate. It made me think of you. So did the moon, as it cast its light in a perfect strip on the passenger seat. I was alone in the car, but with the moon’s light teasing the corner of my vision I could almost imagine you were there too.

You, who I hadn’t seen in weeks; whose face haunted my memories and dreams, yet remained glaringly absent from my day. A face with beautiful blue eyes and a crooked smile that always managed to send my heart fluttering. I longed for your face. I longed to see it and touch it and kiss it. I longed for you.

The moon felt my yearning, and she moved to fix it. She sent me light. Beautiful, ethereal light that teased and whispered to me its love. It was light that wanted, needed, to end that aching longing that I had felt deep in my chest since you left. But I knew it wasn’t real. I knew that if I turned my head, just a centimeter that you would be gone and I would be left only with a thin strip of faded light on the worn seats of an old Prius.

So I didn’t look. I didn’t look as I drove and I didn’t look as I left my car and went into the darkness of my house. No matter how my heart called for you, I would not cave to the false promises of an all too caring moon. And perhaps deep down I thought if I didn’t look I could leave you there, alone in the front seat of my car. I could cast you out of my mind forever and leave you for the dust and the darkness. But the heart never forgets what it once held so dearly. I couldn’t forget your smile or your eyes, or the way I was once able to caress your soft hair with such love and tenderness. My heart couldn’t forget the way your eyes lit up when you saw me, as if I were the most important part of your universe, or the dullness in them when you told me you no longer loved me.  Try as I might, I could never leave you the way you left me.

It worked for a moment though, my small act of spite against you. I grinned, imagining you stuck in the cold of my garage, suffering the way you made me suffer. Although brief, the ache was soothed. But as soon as I found myself in bed alone, wrapped in the warm embrace of my blankets, the heartache returned.

I remembered the way you wrapped your arms around me, wrapped me in all your love. You would hold me close and whisper things in my ear. Secrets, compliments, and so many other things. And the best and worst of it all was when you would tell me your plans for our future. The lives we could live and the thing we could do. Always, you would say. We would always do those things together. But now those words are meaningless. Hollow lies that still bounced around in my brain. And the worst of all is that the more I clung to and remembered those words the more they wounded me, because I knew that you didn’t mean any of them and yet I still yearned for your arms around me again. I yearned for those bitter sweet lies you once told me.

My last thought of the night was about you. About how much you hurt me and how much I still loved you.

Even now I think about you every day. I think about your laugh and your smile and how even though I hate you so much I know that some part of me will still always love you. I see how you are with her. I see how you look at her the way you used to look at me. I sometimes wonder if you tell her the same beautiful things you once told me. I wonder if you will leave her the way you left me. But sometimes I hope that she will leave you, just as callously as you threw me away, and maybe you will feel the way I feel.

But I don’t need you anymore. I don’t anguish at the though of what we once were and I don’t anguish at the thought of you. It’s been months since we last saw each other, and finally I can let go of you. Maybe one day I can find someone else. Someone better, who won’t fill my head with lies and then leave me when someone better comes along.

I hope I see you again someday. I hope one day we’ll run into each other in a coffee shop or a bookstore. If we do, I’ll smile at you. You might avoid me or you might smile back. I want you to see me, see how even though you destroyed me I am strong. I can pick myself back up, live my life, and even smile at the person who once betrayed me so deeply.

And maybe one day I won’t feel the scar you left on my soul.

Author's Note

any constructive criticism would be wonderful