Here I am again, writing in my room, sitting at my desk, staring out into the moonless night.
It is as if I never left. My bed looks exactly the same, the pillows propped up neatly where I left them. Over at the corner, my tee shirt and jeans lie crumpled in a heap where I left them in a hurry to see you last Friday afternoon.
It would almost seem as if I had never left my house, and this weekend were any normal weekend, nothing special or out of the ordinary, if not for the fact that my lips are still tingling from your kisses, and my body is still warm and feverish for your touch.
So here I am writing to you again. These words I write - they're all for you.
Because the moment I fell in love with you, two very distinct things happened; everything became about you, and I never ever stopped.
I have a lot of wild thoughts about you, they tend to get all jumbled up when I see you face to face. But somehow, writing about you helps me to sort out my thoughts. Isn't it strange? It's like everything falls into place, and everything makes perfect sense because these are the parts that have you in them. My life makes perfect sense now that you are a part of it.
Do you know how hard it was to sit still in my seat as the train started to move, and smile at you, the smile I had practised all the way to the train station? Do you know how hard it was to continue to smile, and wave, when every atom of me strained to do the opposite, when every part of me wanted to scream, stop, stop this train, let me out, let me get off this train, I left my heart down there, and I'm breaking, I can't do this anymore, I can't keep saying hello and goodbye, because it's killing me a little each time? Do you know how hard it was to watch your pale, set face, your eyes filled with such misery, such desperate longing, with that smile pasted on your lips, so fixed, so tight, as if it cost you, it bled you dry inside?
When I picture you in my mind, it's not that sad painful smile that I see, but your real, your happy smile when you're with me. So smile for me, my darling, smile your genuine smile for me, that adorable boyish grin, the one that gets me every time, the smile that makes me smile so much it makes my cheeks hurt. It doesn't matter that I'm not there to see it, I can see it now as I close my eyes...
I remember the last night before I left you, the last night to treasure, to store up in my ghostly heart, for all the cold, bleak nights that lie ahead.
"I want to spend every night of my life with you," you whispered, your lips on my hair. "I don't need to touch you, not if you don't me to, I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, every night, every single night of my life." There was desperation in your voice. "It's just this one wish. In the grand scheme of things, is it too selfish to ask for that, is it too much to ask for that? To be with you, to hold you, to grow old with you, to turn to you, ten, twenty, a hundred years from now, and say to you, I love you now as I did before, I love you now more than ever - is that too much to ask, you think? Surely not?"
And I turned to you, and held you tight, and whispered,"Still an hour to daylight. Close the curtains, and shut out the light, let's treasure every second we have, the remaining time we have. A moment with you is a lifetime for me, an hour with you is an eternity for me..."
And you drew the curtains, and shut out the light. The room plunged into darkness, but it didn't matter, because you were the light inside, the dizzying brilliance that burst to radiant life in the black abyss.
Our time together is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. All too soon, far too soon, it runs out, so the only way I can beat Time is to immortalise our love on paper.
Do you see it now, Jaemin? Every word I have written here is a step to bring myself closer to you. I've lived my life again, and our love again, by just telling it to you.
Every time I write, I get lost in the memory of you. Sometimes, I think that the things I write about you, the things I remember about you, are more real than the things I see around me.
The trouble is, once the words are written, and my fingers still, everything around me seems to grow quiet. I feel like a girl who has been walking and walking along a long bright street, lost in her memories, who suddenly catches a glimpse of herself in the tall glass window of a shop. I am standing alone, looking at my own reflection; you are not with me. I look up and I realise that I have come to the end of the street, the street of memories, and I can go no further; for the street that stretches ahead of me is dark and empty, and the streetlamps are unlit.
A shower has started. The raindrops are pattering against my window pane. The tapping of the rain against the lonely glass reminds me of the train chug-chugging away, as it pulled out of the train station. It has the same low, mournful sound.
I will end by reminding myself of the things to do tomorrow and the rest of my life until I see you again.
There are only two things in my to-do list.
1. Breathe in.
2. Breathe out.
Good night, Jaemin my love.
I love you. I miss you. I love you.