Echo

Have you forgotten me? What has filled that place in you where I used to be? 

Mine is empty, words you used to say circle round in it, echoing, bouncing off the hard walls, like waves swimming round a cave hollowed out by the sea.

When you're old and dying, will you think of me? You said you wanted to be with me when I died, that I would be afraid and you wanted to be there to comfort me. 

When I am dying I will think of you, if only for a second, I will remember the day that you said that, lying in our bed, that I cried, I will remember that you aren't there.

When you have children will you think of me? Will you remember when we were young and drunk, before we were even together and you said that in your head I was the mother of your children. Will you remember when you said that, and wonder if it should have been? 

As a strange form of self torture I picture you and her together. Picture the first time you slept together, not two weeks since we had split up, not two weeks since your future had dramatically switched course. You needed no time to adjust. Does she fill that space in you where I used to be? Was I so easy to replace?

For the longest time after we ended I couldn't look in the mirror, couldn't look at the parts of me that you loved so much. My neck, long and thin extending up from my shoulders, sharp collar bones sticking out from my chest, round shoulders and long thin arms. I would see you behind me in the mirror admiring, hear you telling me I was beautiful, telling me how lucky you were to be able to touch me finally, to be so close to something that you had admired for so long. I feel your touch, gently on my skin, sending shivers up my spine. It felt so real, but it wasn't, you had gone and I was alone. I would turn away from the mirror in disgust, I couldn't look alone.

Even now, 6 months later, I still cry sometimes when I'm with someone else. Can't not think of you, of what our sex was like. How you used to look deep in to my eyes, and say that inside me was your favourite place to be, that you never wanted to leave. How you used to say that when we came it was like saying I love you. I cry because I can't help but imagine you saying that to someone else now. 

You are the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I think of before sleep finally comes. I yearn for a day when this is not true, but not as strongly as I yearn for you. To see your face, hear your voice, feel your touch, look in your eyes, and say I love you with them, like you said we used to. 

I dream of our first kiss, after all those years of wishing and wanting. Drunk one evening we were dancing, you sang to me, sang that you loved my ginger hair and the way I liked to dress. You grabbed me, hand on the small of my back and pulled me close. It only lasted for a second. I thought I'd be expecting it forever, but I never could have seen it coming. 

Then I dream of our last kiss, when you said you'd be home early, I kissed you and told you to have a good time, for the last time. 

I dream that I see you, you come in to my work and say that we have to talk, we run away, and you tell me that you are sorry, none of it meant anything to you, and it's time for us to be in love again.

I dream that you come to my new home, I wake sharply from hearing a knock at the door, I'm so sure that it's you that I get up and go to the door, but there is no one there. I dream that often, and I get up and check every time. Just in case, one day the dreams come true. 

I dream that we are back in our house in Brighton, where we were happiest. Then she is there, and you both tell me that I have to leave, I have to move out, she is moving in and there is no room for me there anymore. I have been kicked out of my happiest memories, I should forget you, as you have clearly forgotten me. 

But you will always be with me, one day I will have children, and I will remember when we were young and we thought so unwaveringly that we would have them together. 

Someone will tell me that they love the way my pupils dilate when I look at them, and the sound of you saying that will echo in that empty part of me.

Someone will look in to my eyes and tell me that I'm the one, and for a split second I will see you.