I sit

In my stuffy bedroom,

Ceiling fan buzzing,

Doing little to fan the flames in my head.

You struck a match in my brain

That has been contained over time,

But to this day,

I still find flickers of you

Burning through my mind.

And I lay in my wrinkled,

humid,

summer sheets,

and I still see all the memories I never made with you

playing on repeat:

The way you look from the passenger seat

How you hold your fork and the way you dance

Your unapologetic laugh

The sound of your voice at the top of your lungs

As we sing to a song we agreed was dumb

But we sing anyway

Because that’s just us.

There never was an “us.”

I never got to see

all the parts of you I wanted to

I never got a glimpse

of how you act when no one’s watching

I didn’t get the time

to do stupid things with you

I never saw

your flannel shirt nights or your crusty eye mornings

Or the way you look in sunglasses

and I never got the chance

to get to know the mediocre side of you

all the average things you do

that would never have been average to me

because you were always something more

to me

you were endless possibilities

but as I lay here in my crumpled sheets

I have only imaginary memories

of things I never did with you

conversations that I wish were true

I lie here and play make believe

to see parts of you I’ll never see

Sometimes what we want just cannot be

and

so

I

try

to

fall

asleep

But sleep will not come,

And I open my eyes to the muted world of my dank bedroom,

Look at the clock,

And I know

That this is going to be a long summer.