poetry.

an open letter to the sunset of us

I miss the days when I wasn't scared to talk to you. 

I wish I didn't have to wait anxiously to ask you to spend time with me, shifting my weight from foot to foot like I'm some goddamn teenage boy asking the prettiest girl to the Valentine's Day dance. 

Why did you leave me?

Or rather, how did I lose you?

We used to be braided rope; stronger together and tight as sisters. Now you're fraying as I try desperately to bring you back to the times we made plans to sneak out of my house and taste vodka, not to get drunk but just to feel the buzz of a forbidden substance on our tongues. Take me back to the days we spent twined around each other, hands in hair and heads on chests. I miss how easy we were, how loving you came as effortless as breathing. 

Those muddled words and clumsy tongues split us apart, and although you know that I'm not the monster I seemed, you're still...distant. Like cigarette smoke wafting away into the endless night sky. 

But the change was before that, even. The way you'd look at me sideways and it sent needles to my heart, because you'd never looked at me like that before. The way your breath would hitch and your voice would waver when you saw me. Not in a good way, like how lovers melt when they see each other. No, it was more like seeing a shadow in the corner of your eye, but it didn't dissolve when you looked at it. It just smiled and hoped you'd smile back. But you never did.
Remember when we were golden, when you painted wings on my back and talked to me like you knew I'd never forget a word you said. Remember when you slept next to me and laughed when I talked in my sleep, when you couldn't close your eyes for fear of nightmares, so you drew me in your mind and counted the freckles no one else had bothered to look for? Remember when you tipped a canoe in six inches of water and cut your knee, then apologized for bleeding in my car? Don't you remember these days? Do you not ache for when I called you my sister and you held my hand on the way to dollar general, raising a middle finger to the people who tried to pull us apart? 

Because I do. I remember the way you'd breathe as you spoke my name, the way you would card your hands through my choppy brown hair and make me feel safe with a single touch. And every time I look at you......I see the memories we lost. The day we danced in the bluebonnet fields, the first time you kissed a boy and I was happy for you, the days you spent in my empty house when times were hard, don't you fucking remember how much we loved each other and how much it hurt when I saw you drift away and not able to do a damn thing about it? 

I have lost you. Not in the way you think, I know you're still here and you still smile at me and you still say my name, but the way we were. I know friendships come and go but goddammit Sara, I wanted you to stay. I wanted you to be there when my first child was born. I wanted you to be my maid of honor at the wedding I swore I'd never have. I wanted you to be there when I graduated college, for you to paint my grad cap with the ease I never could. I wanted to spend my whole life by your side, even when we both had families and jobs and lives, I wanted you there. 

I guess it doesn't matter how much I wanted it, or how much you wanted it either. All that matters is I've lost you and you haven't come back.