How do we remain friends when I once thought I’d spend eternity within the calmness of your embrace?

I’m holding on to a forever we wrote in ephemeral ink. As time passes, I no longer remember what your warmth feels like, but it lingers in places I can no longer grasp. It hangs in my throat, courses through my spine, and tingles in my fingers. Words? They fail me. But if I could hold you, and lock your fingers between mine while the space between us is infinitely nothing, maybe my eyes would tell the stories unfamiliar to my tongue.

I feel the space between us grow every time the earth completes one more rotation on its axis. It’s not intentional; it is what happens when you share a history that refuses to stay where it belongs; in the past, alongside memories of nights littered with endless laughter and beautiful revelations of affection we thought would burn for an aeon. Wishful thinking?

I’m a praying man, so I go on my knees and ask God when I will again experience his glory within the melody of your spoken words or musing eyes. The space between us is riddled with unspoken words, unresolved yearnings, and casketed needs to be. Common sense pleads to let things be and allow time to conceal all things. I am not a logical man. I am not bound by time or space. This son of man will walk the world backward to be by your side.

Now, how do we remain friends when I once thought I’d spend eternity within the calmness of your embrace? Do not answer; I know how. It would involve killing myself when the sun awakes with the rooster’s cock-a-doodle-do. Lies — telling a lot of it. No, not to you; I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m the one in need of a good lasting fib. This lover-turned-friend will say it in the mirror, and to anyone who cares to listen. I’ll scream it to the void until it echoes it back to me. The words “we are what we are” will ring until they become true.

Note this: friends do not do the things I think about doing to you when you cross my mind. And oh, how often you wander along my thoughts. I’m performing a balancing act between my mind and heart; I love you and wish above all things that you’re happy. Tomorrow, I’ll call, we’ll talk, and you’ll go about your day knowing you have a friend in me. I’ll go to bed wishing, hoping something changes in our stars.

If you loved this, then I think you’d love my short stories collection titled “7 Letters to Ruby. You can download it here