I Wish You Could Have Loved Me Too

I lay next to him, craving a cigarette I know would only give me a headache immediately after. He readjusted his body, slinging his arm around me, pulling me into him. He was sticky with sweat.

I struggled to quell the nausea.

My skin was on fire. Not in the same way you set me aflame. No, this was different. Harsher. Your fire caressed me, warming me from the inside out. We kindled it together. It was ours.

Now my skin was burning me alive. I wanted to scorch it off, to peel away my scarred leftovers, to walk out of this body and into the next one. I wanted to walk into the body that lay next to yours.

I wish I could pretend he was you. Maybe that would be easier for me. For all I know it would be worse.

I wish my fingers could grasp at the hair on your chest when, instead, all they find is boyish skin, seemingly unscathed and unaffected by the fire that is threatening to consume me.

I wish he fucked me the way you did, with one hand around my neck, the other on the small of my back, your voice low in my ear, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful.

I wish his fingers didn’t cut me open the way that they do. Then again, I almost wish they would. I wish that his soft hands were calloused instead, bigger, hands that stilled me.

I wish he laughed like you. I wish he looked at me the way you did, kissed me the same way, touched me, touch me, please, I’m desperate to touch you one last time.

I wish it were easy to get over you. I wish he were you but more importantly, I wish I were every girl that came before me and after me. I wish you would have chosen me.

Sometimes I say I wish I never met you. That’s my only lie here. If I could do it all again, I would. Every second of heartache was worth loving you.

I just wish you could have loved me, too.