What’s it gonna take to forget you?

It’s late. It’s cold and there’s a light drizzle. There’s no moon in the sky, just a sleeping city’s lights beneath my feet.  I’m on the roof, leaning on the safety railing, smoking one cigarette after another – “nails o’ the coffin”, you used to call them. I’m soaked, but I can’t go back inside the apartment. You’re in there.

Hah. I wish.

What I meant to say is that everything in there reminds me of you. And if I’m going to lie down, be miserable and stare at the ceiling as the night’s small hours pass, I might as well stay up here and finish the pack.

Up here, the time has stopped. I prefer it this way. I wear no watch. I left my phone in the apartment. Sometimes the urge to call you is too strong. I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to tell you that I miss you, or that I want you back. Don’t misunderstand me. We both know it would be silly and futile.

It’s just that you always had the answers. When I was stumbled, I always turned to you. And I’ve never felt more stumbled in my life.

“Hey, babe, do you have a moment? Tell me real quick – what’s it gonna take to forget you?”

And if you knew, you’d tell me. There are no hard feelings between us, I think. Not on my end, at least. It’s been months since we ended it (months, but it still feels like yesterday). We cried, we screamed and we shouted at each other, until we both understood all we were saying was “I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us, babe”. In the end, there were no egos, just the mutual agreement that we’re not meant for each other.

And maybe that’s the worst of it. We’re over. I can’t hate you. I can’t have you back. The only thing I can do is forget you. But can I, really?

I tried drowning myself in a bottle (a long series of bottles, actually). It didn’t work out. It never does, but hey, don’t judge. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

I tried burying myself under tons of work. I ended up getting that productivity bonus I was always shooting for – a weekend for two in a holiday retreat, all paid for – but nobody to enjoy it with.

I even tried replacing you with another woman. Remember that coworker of mine, the redhead one you always thought had a thing for me? Well, babe, turns out you were right. I took her to that retreat. We flirted, we laughed, we kissed, we had sex. It was pretty good. But no matter how many ways and times I emptied myself inside her, it did nothing to fill the void inside me.

So tell me. What am I to do?

You’re still my first thought in the morning and my last in the night. What’s it gonna take for that to stop? What’s it gonna take to forget you?

It’s kind of a rhetoric question at this point. I know it’s gonna take time. So I guess I’m gonna keep living. I’m gonna keep going to work, eating alone, reading. I’m gonna keep hanging out with that pal from across town. He recently broke up too, so it’s kind of a therapy thing. I tell him what troubles me, he tells me what troubles him. In the end, we laugh. We pat each other on the shoulder and say “Got your back, Jack, bitches be crazy”, as if that were the case. And we laugh again, and I realize I haven’t thought of you for five whole minutes.

Baby steps, right?

Back to reality, though. My pack’s empty. The drizzle has stopped. I’m gonna catch a bad cold, I think. The sky has taken a dull, iron-gray color in the east. Dawn’s about to break. “My watch has ended”, I mutter to myself, and almost laugh.  You’d laugh. That was your thing, quoting tv shows at inappropriate moments.

I’m off to sleep now. I’m gonna lie on my empty bed and, if all goes well, the world will go dark and silent for eight hours. I’d really like that. Just a deep slumber. God knows I need it.

So please, stay out of my dreams. It’s not that I don’t want you there, mind you. It’s just that I have to carry on. I have to somehow forget you.

You’d understand.

So goodnight – and, hopefully, goodbye.