You’re Everywhere I Go

You’re nowhere to be found in my life. But you’re still everywhere I go.

7 weeks ago on a Sunday, you left. Every Sunday that goes by marks another week without you in my life and every week feels more and more difficult to get through. But as they say, it gets harder before it gets easier.

I search for your familiar face in the crowd, walking by the places where we used to sit every day, with the faint hope of seeing you there too. Every guy with thick brown curly hair reminds me of you – it makes me flash back to when we were lying on my bed every night at 2am, and I would absentmindedly run my hands through your hair as we laid there and talked. It was so strangely soothing. Every once in a while, I would look over at your face and be reminded of how much I was in love with you. I’m still in love with you, even now.

Still walking through the crowd. From the back, I see a guy with the same black jacket, and for a second, I think it’s you. Anxiety sets in, and I have to step around the corner to catch my breath. My heart races. Take a minute to breathe so I don’t cry. Gather my thoughts again. Keep on going with my day.

There are so many things I would say to you if I were to see you face to face again. For weeks, day and night, I rehearse a speech of all the things I never got to say to you – the good and the bad. But in that unprepared moment, if it ever happened, I don’t know how I would react. Would I stutter? Would I cry? Would my voice crack, and all the words come out wrong? If I ever saw you again, maybe I’d have nothing to say. Maybe I would just stand there, mind blank, and freeze.

We went to all my favorite places while we were together, and we also frequented the boring, everyday places. Now I can’t go anywhere without seeing you again in my mind, standing there, holding me in your arms, hearing your voice. The tree we sat under, talking for hours and hours. The bar where we sat in the corner, side by side on hazy nights – drink in one hand, and the other hand securely and perfectly interlocking with yours. The overpass I drive by on the way home, where we stood watching the sunset glow over the mountains. The train station downtown where you kissed me on my birthday on a busy Friday evening – people swarming all around us. That one moment will be forever frozen in time.

Now all I hear are the echoes of our laughter faded in my mind – how fragile our relationship really was.

I wait for time to make the pain go away. One day, you’ll be but a memory in my past, and I’ll stop looking for you in the crowd.