do you think of me?

i still feel this inexplicable gravitational pull towards you.

it's like my head has forgotten that it's August,

but my heart remembers.

the last time i saw you

i mean, really saw you,

with no witnesses forcing us to make small talk,

we sat on a rock in the middle of the creek

at the park by your house,

and i knew that we would never end up together.

i was 20 years old.

brimming with hope that maybe this was finally our chance.

but we didn't say anything about the previous decade.

just spoke about college and far-off plans for the future.

somewhere along the way,

i knew it was the last time we'd talk.

i spent years yearning for you.

wondering if you'd ever love me back the same way.

wondering if you'd wreck your whole life for me too.

it felt like the begininng of the end

of something that had been so drawn out my entire life.

i was almost relieved to let it go after all that time.

—

i was never the one.

i walk into a room like a hurricane—

hair flying, rambling about how the dream i had last night

convinced me that we should move to South Africa.

still writing about all the things i've felt

for everyone i've ever met.

i've never known how to choose a smaller life.

so you found a girl who fit into the life you imagined.

and she'll have your babies,

and you'll live in the same town,

and make the same drive to your parents' house each month,

and take the same beach vacation every summer,

and the years will pass quietly—

and you'll be happy and fulfilled.

in an alternate universe,

i would've been happy to have that life with you.

but in this one,

i would've spent the whole time

trying to quiet the feeling

that there was something beyond it.

—

so August 14th rolls around each year

and sometimes i forget,

but sometimes i don't.

sometimes i grab a kitchen chair and use it

to reach the cardboard box on the top shelf of my closet.

and read through my old journals

and reminisce on the way i used to long for you.

the boy who beat me in Around the World in 2nd grade.

i would've waited at that rock until the creek swept me away.

i think of you from time to time.

do you think of me?