Today I Will Not Miss You

Today I won’t miss you. Today, you will not be my first aching thought when I open my tired eyes and I won’t roll over and search for the warmth of your body beside me. Today I will not wait for a good morning text or let my mind be crowded with thoughts about you—what you’re doing, who you’re with, if you miss me.

Today I will not let my body feel heavy, incomplete, empty, as if it’s missing a vital part. Today I promise I’ll try to live without you, today I will not fight the urge to run to you.

Today, like a failed yesterday, like a long tomorrow, I shall get on with my day, I shall go to seminars, meet my friends for coffee and choose a movie which doesn’t allow me to sob. I shall practice the art of laughing with my dorm friends without my mind being plagued by the image of your face, your blue eyes, your kissable lips, your ruffled hair.

I will not lose time in my head, remembering the softness of your skin or the smell of that exact space on your neck which you always tease me for pressing my nose to, just so I can inhale your scent, just so I can absorb you.

Today I will walk barefoot along the shore, the cold water tickling my toes and I will not see your footprints beside mine, I will not imagine your hand tucked inside mine and the echo of your laugh around me.

Today I will not count the days till I see you next, I will not imagine the ways I could get to you, I will not curse the miles and hours between us.

I will not curse myself for making this decision, for choosing my dreams, for knowing we’ll be okay. Today I will trust our love, I will trust that what we have is more than this.

And tonight, these lonely nights where the darkness taunts me, I will not wish for you.

Tonight I’ll drink tequila with my girl friends and dance like I don’t have a care in the world. Tonight I will not drunk dial you and ask you to come here, to just get in your car and drive to me.

Tonight I’ll know this isn’t easy for you either, I’ll know you’re there wanting me too.

Tonight I’ll fall into my too big bed and appreciate the ability to starfish, I’ll pile your pillows beneath my head and fall into a dream with you.

We’ll be there, on that porch in the house we always speak of, when college is over and nothing can come between us. We’ll drink tea and eat cake and I’ll look over at you, at the lines etched into your face and the specks of grey in your hair and that comforting love in your eyes, and I’ll know that our stories were always meant to end this way.

I’ll know that our chapters lived on separate pages for a while but the ink was always pressed together, was always permanent, that in the end we’d come back together.

I’ll know that one day, we’ll be stronger for this; we’ll love harder, deeper, more knowingly.

Because the distance, oh honey the distance is just a blip, just an unavoidable part of life. So I’ll be seeing you, I’ll be waiting for you on that porch in the late summer months and I think back to this, to the missing, to the pain, to the nights crying for you, and I’ll know, it was worth it,

We were worth it.