home           about           blog           archives           domain           exits           ask
 

The spaces you fill.

July 7, 2011    |    0 COMMENT(S)

Last night, I found myself still awake by half past midnight, my thoughts aimlessly drifting to prose then equations then finally, hunger. I went up to the fridge, like I always do, but I was welcomed by a leftover box of chicken I couldn't remember eating. Beside it was a can of diet soda, a beverage I don't allow myself to drink. There was an opened pack of gummy bears, which I eventually reach for and behead one by one, but junk food of this variety I don't buy for my own.

And that was it, that was when it hit me: I couldn't not find you in my room. Not a place where a piece of you wasn't left behind. Not my pillow where our heads rested after a night of watching films on our stomachs. Not my wooden spoon that I used to mix the pancake batter, because we chose to have breakfast for dinner. Not the paper clip that held together your reading "Places & Landscapes for a Changing World" which you will never bother browsing for class. Not my mirror that revealed to you the man who has me wrapped around his finger. Not the shampoo you used that threatened to linger on my hair, my clothes. Not even in the song that played inside my head over and over and over again, the sound of the waves colliding on the ocean of skin that barely separated me from you.

You had no problems littering everyday with traces of you, attaching yourselves to songs I mouth with my eyes closed. My clothes are your clothes, your perfume my own. The pronouns you have permanently replaced, no more "I" or "you," only "us." I try to look for a piece of my space that you haven't yet found, but your fingerprints are everywhere, your heartbeat, always just a whisper away. My blanket holds me in your embrace and the cool blow of the fan scratches my back like your hand spelling out my name.

No, you are everywhere, I realized, and I finally fell asleep, in the comfort of the promise you kept the other night when I said can we stay here a little longer?


--

I wrote this in about twenty minutes, the story having been in my head for the entire day now. There's just a sudden enchantment about this Thursday snuggle-weather that brewed something up inside my head. Consider this my apology for being away for too long: working on my thesis is taking up most of my time, and not having an Internet connection at the dorm is not helping at all. On the contrary, this gives me a legitimate enough excuse to just sleep and hop around from one college library to another. Here's to wishing I can (still) survive the absence of wi-fi.

Labels: ,




________________________________________________________________