What if you just… don’t. Maybe that’s kinder. But maybe… What if you do call? What if we grab a coffee—that one date we never really had?
It’s funny how it all started: A vague glance. A lazy smile. A quick question. A social event. A cold beer. School. Tale as old as time.
But it was so long ago… and so much has happened. So much has been cried for. Tear after tear, I could make a whole ocean with them, salty and sweet waters because, oh boy, how much have you broken and how much I’ve let you break me.
Let’s call you Peter, and my name is Jo. And darling you wanted a Wendy, because every time you had me, you just focused on slicing my chest open and taking my heart. A pirate. A thief.
To be loved by a Peter is dangerous. It’s a spark, it’s noses rubbing each other and lazy kisses, it’s passion and sleepless days and nights. It’s something that ignites, something within you that consumes you, until you’re burning and suddenly you have too many scars.
It’s a promise of a lifetime. It’s a knife that plays with life. It’s almost dangerous…until it is.
Please don’t let me fall. Please don’t… But you did.
You see, I’m staring at my phone waiting for your call. But hearing your voice won’t bring any relief. It won’t bring any peace. I’m desperate to hear your voice and ask you to tell me something, to tell me how your day was. Darling, I’m yearning to have you next to me and hold you tight, and to hear that laugh you only do when you’re with me. That sunshine sound, it’s like liquid gold for my system.
But the storm comes, and her name sounds, because you always have to mention the past in our brightest moments. That’s a compliment, right? Taking clothes off, sweet hot kisses, and mentioning the past and how not even then with her you have been as happy as this.
Then your voice dropped to a whisper: I should maybe disappear, because I don’t deserve to be happy. The words crawled up my spine. Death was always around like an uninvited friend. And I remember the blade… oh the blade, the blade, so sharp and mundane.
You wanted to feel that rather than not being together?
Darling… maybe we should have just muted the noise and tried.
And don’t worry, I know exactly what I am.
I’m a bolt.
I’m a frost.
No in between.
Either I don’t even dare to hold your hand or just say fuck it and kiss you first. Be the first person to hold your hand, say I’m in love with you before you did or say nothing at all. Break up with you but open my door at 12 am because you needed to talk. I’m right there with you. But I’m not with you. But you were always there. Even when I asked for distance, even if I tried. You were there. Scratching the surface, and telling me to be together again.
But I don’t give an answer, but my door is open.
That’s worse, right?
To be in a devoted limbo?
Because I belong to you, but I’m not yours.
You called me yours with limited days.
And every other day it was a battlefield with bombs and knives and we came back to a loop of repeating the same mistakes.
Then the distance comes and you disappear. I take it, I give you that. And it’s hard but I start feeling like the knot is loosening. But… it goes no longer than tow weeks till we meet again by chance, life.
And the spark is still there. Nothing has to happen, but the bond is there. And you approach and I hold the door open. And we start again in the cycle. But when you disappear you find others.
A quick kiss, a midnight dinner, a hookup, weed.
Doesn’t really matter.
But you take the chance.
It’s your right, we’re not together. Not for so many long months. But yet… we have been in an unpacked partnership that has kept us together.
Call me, and tell me how you just hooked up with a girl. And two days after you’re wanting to stay in my bed.
Call me and tell me you want to be be with.
Call me and tell me you can do whatever you want because we’re not together, and tell me I can’t expect you to be exclusive to me if I don’t want to be with you.
So easy.
So, so easy to give me the controlling and delusional character in the story.
Never once did I ask anything from you, but it hurts, every time you cycle back to me.
Yet I yearn for your presence with me. You became that dangerous safe place. I have so many bruises that they don’t fit on my mask anymore.
Why do I yearn for you? After all this time, after all of what you’ve done to me? You leave and I feel replaceable, forgettable.
But you come back and I feel responsible, resentful of everything I’ve let you do to me even if you apologize thousands of times.
With or without you I’m stuck.
And it’s consuming me like poison and chronic pain.
I need to be set free, because you leave, flying away to a place you won’t look back to meet me. You’ll be narrating stories, going on adventures, moving on… till you won’t and you’ll ask me again. Or maybe you won’t this time.
I need to forget.
Maybe I really need to forget.
Your warm embrace. Your sweet laugh and your safe heaven. Your sharp words and blades. The tears and the constant fear of how you’d react to anything I say or do. To forget I miss you continuously and look for you in every room. The smell of your perfume, old spice and vanilla. Those eyes that seem to be framed with kohl because of your long black lashes. Your handwriting.
I need to forget you were never careful with me.
Please let me fall. Please let me… Maybe this time you will.
But… My phone rings.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
It’s you.
I answer with a shaky hand… “Hello?”
“…Hi,” you said, sounding almost hesitant, “Jo?”
I don’t say anything.
“Hello?”
But I keep silent.
“…I don’t know what to say…I’ve been trying to think of what I’d say if you ever answered.”
“And?” I mutter.
“I don’t think the old words belong to us anymore.”
They won’t. Not anymore.
“I’m Jo,” I say, closing my eyes and hoping for something I can’t even reach in my mind.
You don’t say anything for a long time.
But then, you laugh. Not because it was funny, but because you understood, “I’m Peter.” You say “Hi, Jo.”
“Hi, Peter,” I smile, “Tell me something I don’t know.”