Will I Ever Stop Dreaming Of You?

Will I ever stop seeking your acknowledgment and remorse for the ways that you hurt me? Will my subconscious ever stop conjuring up scenarios in which I can finally forgive you in REM cycles, to counteract your betrayal in real life? Will I ever be able to accept the ways that you threw me away?

Will I ever let you go?

Will your memory ever stop haunting the corridors of my mind, lurking in the shadows, just waiting to appear and trigger an avalanche in my chest? Will your imprinted existence in my subconscious ever let me go?

Will my breath ever stop catching in my chest every time I glance at the clock when it reads 9:44 p.m.? Will September nights ever stop being tainted by memories of you? Will Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry ever stop serving as a time machine, bringing me right back to the death of that summer, when we sat on the swing set, up at that park and you told me things that I had spent years waiting to hear from you?

Do you ever regret the way things played out? Do you ever feel sorry for the way you treated me, or the pain you know you must have inflicted? Do you ever think of me at all?

Are you happy with yourself, with your life that you have built? Are you comfortable with the decisions you have made that lead to your stagnant little existence? Are you content with the fact that you are still stuck here, in our hometown?

I still remember the thirteen-year-old that you once were, cursing this town and making promises aloud to anyone who would listen that you would leave this place and never look back, the first chance you got. Well what would that kid think of you now, and the way you dropped anchor here? Are you proud, mistaking your lack of motivation for stability?

Do you ever feel like you’re drowning?

I do.