Seven Steps To Still Loving An Ex

The cycle of everything is linear, like the universe spinning in a rhythmic pattern; it’s terrible and still all I know.
One day, dust shivers off book spines and I turn to a familiar, dog-eared page just to remember the sting of paper cuts again.
It is how I will always love and return to him: in steps, in stages, in darkness, faith, and hate.

1. In a moment of weakness or divine intervention, he answers my calls. It has been months since we last spoke, and I can’t remember the color of his eyes or the way his voice cracks when he whispers my name, but he answers. It’s harmless, meaningless, and yet it ignites a hunger within me, because it means everything. Apologies taste like candy in my mouth when I spit them out.

2. We make plans. It doesn’t always happen the way anyone else would have planned it, but a haphazard lightning bolt of inspiration always sends me spinning back to old haunts where I once felt sane. My hair is curled, my makeup perfected, my outfits slipping from my body. Tan legs grin beneath frayed shorts. We laugh like hyenas drunk on our very own existence and fall back into effortless movements I should fear… but how can I fear such a gentle hand on my thigh? How can I remember the devil behind his eyes when he smiles like such an angel?

3. We’re kissing. Never mind that these kisses are what nearly destroyed us before �" like electric currents, like whole universes imploding, like firestorms and demolished foundations. We will kiss, and his lips will press against my collarbones and I will forget that he f*****g left me, and that this isn’t about f*****g poetry anymore, it’s about someone kissing me while knowing that a part of me probably still loves them, and can’t help it, and still feels like shards of glass remembering how it felt to be left behind.

4. The morning after, I always leave early, before dawn, when the person I “don’t” love is still asleep. I listen to his snores. I connect birthmarks like star constellations in a hand drawn map. Occasionally, my fingers will outline his sleeping frame from shoulder to hip and back again �" my touch is only a faint tickle, and he will sleep still, but his eyelids will flutter, and I will wonder if he is dreaming of me, or of someone else. Someone better. Someone he didn’t leave once.

5. I try not to call so quickly, but I always do. Responses feel… do they feel stranger, or is it me who is suddenly strange, aware that I can no longer scrub myself clean of his fingerprints? Is it me drowning, or does he purposefully fall silent, whatever he wanted already pursued and conquered? In the silence, I feel myself split apart. I stare at the ceiling and count my breaths, each one meant to bring me back to earth, and I can only close my eyes and remember what it was like to be loved for one night. One night only.

6. There are no phone calls. There are no messages. There is only me, remembering what my mother told me once �" “once boys get what they want, there’s nothing left for them to dream about.” so what did he want?

7. He must want the silence �" the resurrection of our past paths that always seemed like his fears grew bodies. Afraid to love me, and afraid of the pain in my voice, he slips away undetected. There are no apologies. There is nothing left between us but the faint mark left behind by teeth grinding my skin, as if he has branded me. He owns me, but will not step forward to claim me. It has been like this before, and it will always be like this.

We live in patterns: wake up, eat, laugh, cry, sleep. We are broken. Our patterns spin like revolving doors.

“i missed you,” I had uttered meekly, and he took his time answering, as if contemplating what reply would destroy me the least.
It’s all I have the energy to say before he vanishes again, nothing but a ghost in my doorway.