You owe me one more night

They say that you truly love the one that is on your mind at 2 p.m. when you’re up to your neck in work, and not the one that’s on your mind at 2 a.m. when you’re sleepless in an empty bed. How about the one who’s on your mind, when it drifts and wanders off, any time of the day?

I haven’t brought you to mind in a while. I admit it. I had to really put effort in not thinking about you, about breaking the habit. And eventually my survival instincts kicked in and won. I stopped thinking about you altogether. You were gone; as though you never existed. And I was fine. Mostly. My fingers have taken a break from writing your name, my mind has taken time off from thinking about your face and your words, my heart has finally started beating at a regular pace again. I’ve banished you from my thoughts and I’ve been better since.

Or so I tell myself. It’s what I whisper at night when I want to sleep. It’s what plays over and over again in my mind as a mantra when my thoughts wander to you, where you are and what you’re doing. If you think about me at all. If you miss me, even just a bit. There’s no point in it. There’s always a trigger. And tonight it was a bridge.

Bridges remind me of you. Don’t ask why. I don’t know and I can’t answer. They just do. Just like if you were to ask me why I fell for you, why I cared for you. I don’t know. I just did.

I wonder how you’re doing. How you’ve been since we last spoke. How work was today and if you’ve eaten anything. I want to know all those little insignificant details about your day, the ones you used to tell me and that made me laugh. I wonder what you’re thinking about now, where your mind was today, and if you’re sleeping already. You know I’m not. I never am at 3 a.m. Does the fact that I’m thinking about you now, and not at 3 p.m., mean that I care any less for you?

Now, at 3 am, I can’t control my mind from wandering to your face, the sound of your voice, your hands and your body even if I try. I don’t want to. The thought calms me, makes the day just a little better; even if it’s just the thought.  You’re gone but that spark’s still here.

We came to that bridge, the one we were supposed to cross together. And you kept walking when I froze. You let go of my hand and walked on without me, so I stayed where you left me wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now, standing there without you. I didn’t run after you. I didn’t follow behind you.

But now I’ll cross the distance for you if you want. I’ll do it because you owe me and I’m more interested in what you have to give than that I’ll be the one coming to you.

You owe me one more night.

One more night, to know that it’ll be the last one. To realize it, to live it all again, knowing that that’s it, there won’t be another; to let you go. You owe me one more to get my fill of you and not think that we’ll get another to do it all again. Once chance, one shot. One more night, just to hold you and do all the things I left for “next time”. Say all the things I held my tongue for because “it wasn’t the right time.” If I had known that there wouldn’t be another night I wouldn’t have let you leave so soon. I would have found a way.

Things end the same way they begin. Our eyes met and that was it. It was abrupt, sudden, relentless. It was a hurricane and it left me breathless. I was sure, and though my knees and hands shook, my feet were steady on the ground when I took each step towards you. I was drawn to you, just like a moth to a flame, alive, my heart pounding in my chest. I wanted you and there were no ifs, ands or buts in my mind. I don’t know why you ran. I don’t know why you killed it before it could even live. Were you just as terrified? Fires tend to scare whoever is used to the cold.

It began as a fire and it should end in the same way. Not with a void, a gap a vast black hole sucking in all reason and meaning of any emotion and feeling either of us had. Not with ice.

I choose our fire over your ice to end it.

I’ll light the match with the sparks that will fly from your last kiss and the friction of our bodies as we move. I’ll douse that damn bridge keeping us apart with kerosene before I walk across it, away from you again and, looking back at you, I’ll set it aflame, cutting us off from each other once and for all. I can do it, I’m not weak. I won’t accept anything less than a blazing fire. We were never worthy of anything less. And before I send it to hell in the flames, I’m calling in your debt.

You owe me one more night with you, in your bed, in your arms. Your hands on my body, skin against skin, your lips on mine, breath mixing with breath. The flame inside me blazing, lighting both of us on fire. Give me that fire, one night, and at dawn, I’ll burn the fucking bridge myself.