You’re So Good At Making Me Feel Like That Young Girl In Love Again

i was back in our college town and i was that young girl in love with you again. you’d think the sight of that old library wouldn’t make my thighs slide apart, but my body betrayed me even after all these years, seeing it there, still standing, thinking about that study room on the third floor that you took me in.

but it doesn’t just happen there.

it’s not even being able to go back to our hometown or visit my parents without thinking about how the house you grew up in is only three stoplights away, and the backyard you first kissed me in only two more down the same way.

i’m home and i’m 15 daydreaming about you again. and i’m 16 dating your friend, getting dropped off by the both of you, catching myself thinking about being alone with you. and i’m 18 sneaking back in after our first kiss. i guess i also loved you back then.

it’s not even being able to walk up the stairs to my childhood room without passing that den we spent last christmas night alone in, with only three bottles of wine and a spliff, almost ten and a half years after our first kiss.

it’s everywhere.

it’s this city i live in, knowing you’re also somewhere in it.

it’s driving to my favorite coffee shop, passing that street.

it’s wondering who now inhabits that apartment with that living room we spent so many nights drinking Cabernet in.

it’s wondering if that purple stain is still there from that night you poured it on and drank it from my skin.

i leave this city and you’re still there.

you’re everywhere.

in that song, in that couple acting like they’re not a couple at the bar. in the one that is, in my unmade wish.

you’re in the last guy i kissed because you weren’t him.

you’ve got my hair by the fist, my lip is still stuck between your teeth, i can still smell you on my skin.

it’s me feeling like a ghost inside, numb to everything, but somehow still managing to feel how much i miss you.

it’s this deep sense of emptiness. it’s drowning in it, choking on memories and what-could-have-beens. it’s coming up for air to write about you until i spit you out only to swallow you again.