Nostalgia

When I think about you, I think in song lyrics. 

I think in the sounds of your laugh and the color of your favorite t-shirt. 

I think in shades of blue and of red. I think in sadness and anger and longing. 

I remember you fondly; I remember it all fondly. I’m not sure that’s even an honest way to feel about our history, but what else can I do? 

Losing you meant running across broken glass, barefoot. It filled me to the brim with heartbreak and loneliness. It made my bones ache with confusion, with the pain of loss. 

How am I to continue existing in a space where you are always near? Where you are never more than a mile away? 

How was I to know the intensity of losing a person the way I lost you? How am I to pass you on the street as if you were a stranger? 

All I do know is that I still don’t have it figured out, navigating the same space you exist in while simultaneously feeling the need to avoid you altogether. It’s as though we’re playing pretend: we’re playing a game where we act as though all our memories don’t exist. 

We’re occupying the same space as before, only now we’re just ghosts of each other’s pasts. 

I haven’t spoken even a word to you in six months now. Yet, I can still feel the space between us in a very tangible way, and to be completely transparent, I am getting so tired of the weight. 

As much as I would like to believe things would be so much better if we had never fallen apart, I know that I cannot keep living in the past the way I do. 

I cannot keep thinking of you in song lyrics and in shades of blue and red. I cannot keep carrying the weight of your gaze as we pass each other on the street. 

Existing in close proximity is all we share now; there’s no sense in believing, thinking, dreaming of anything else. And while I may never fully understand how to best interact with you now, I will move forward anyway. 

Missing you won’t rebuild us, but creating a false narrative of our past won’t either. 

Some things only time will heal. I have to trust that time will heal. 

By Bella Townsend

UC Berkeley student, poetry enthusiast and firm believer in Taco Tuesday.