I feel like everyday I have to meet up with a different friend just so I can tell someone about you. It could be any day when I find myself flicking my phone, calling any friend to ask if she’s free to hangout. What I should actually be telling her is that I am in dire need of company, and that I am just actually forcing anyone to see me so I can start talking about your marvelousness already–just so I can relive those days I had with you out in the open.
Some of my friends fall prey and find themselves trapped to my endless blubbering of you and me. Until they can’t take it anymore. Until they’ve unwillingly memorized your name after hearing it 20,000 times. Until my lungs collapse from pure bliss. Who knew my lips could stretch to a smile from ear to ear?
Yet at the same time, there are nights–it could be any night–when I don’t feel like telling anyone about you–like you are mine and mine to keep, and the mere act of telling someone about you means blasphemy. I didn’t want to have to share you with anyone. It is as if you are my precious, little thing, and there is no place for you other than in my secret pocket. So, some nights, I just find myself all curled up in bed, lost in my mind’s little cinema where bits and snippets of memories and photographs are kept alive. I would press play and watch as our time together unfold right in front of me. Then I would pause and take you all in–all the biggest and littlest details–from how your eyes widen and glow a different glow when you are looking at me to how it changes color from blue to green depending on the day. Then I would press play again, until I have to rewind to the very start.
I live for afternoons and evenings like that when I can almost touch you, when I can almost smell you. When I can almost hear you calling my name out loud. “Amo,” you always call me that. All I have to do is close my eyes and I can hear you telling me that “it’s too ot today,” or that you “want to tell me on thing.” You spoke with great enthusiasm, as if everything you say has meaning and purpose and is a living, breathing thing. It’s so difficult to look away from you as long as you are talking. God! I can listen to you speak Italian all day long even if I don’t understand any single word of it. I can listen to you speak in broken down English. None of it really matters because whatever language you are using, your accent is so edible I can taste every word in my lips.
How you make me feel is a different story. It’s frenzy. Like The Notebook frenzy. Only more frenzy because there is no Lon Hammond between us. It’s just you and me, just like it’s just Noah and Allie.The only thing that separates us is the three months we have from now until then, but you taught me to love Sundays. I hated Sundays with great passion and you know it. Sundays always mean that Monday is knocking at the door and work shit is just around the corner, but you said “every Sunday brings us a week closer to each other,” and since then I see Sunday as an ally, not an enemy.
It’s so hard not to miss everything. Not to miss you, or the color of your skin that looks like the sun is shining through a macadamia. I miss how I will look at you and catch you already looking at me. I miss how you flash your winning smile that makes my face just go all soft and gummy. I miss how you pinch my cheeks. How you nibble my ear. How you tickle me to no mercy. Ah, those uncontrollable pinches and nibbles and tickles! It makes me grin just thinking about it now.
I miss holding your hand too, or you holding my hand. Your hand always feels like a butterfly against mine. Sometimes, it feels like a heartbeat. Like, your hand is so fragile yet so complete and completely alive. I try so hard to make sure I don’t hold you so tight. Yet each time we hold hands, I feel like melting, but more violent because I know that I can turn into a pasty pulp yet won’t dare to let you go. And now that you’re not here, I would touch my hand and run my thumb through my palm. But nothing happens, and I’m left wondering–where have all the nerve endings gone? It always seems to be there shooting different sensation down my spine when you hold me.
I also miss the songs you keep playing in repeat. I learned to love Prince Royce because of you. I have all of your songs in my playlist, and in my chest, somehow. Darte Un Beso, Corazon Sin Cara, Stand By Me, and Addicted. Listening to Addicted in particular brings you a lot closer to me. There is something about that song. The harmony is different. Like, it sets my stomach on the edge. There is something exciting about it, something nervous, and it makes me feel everything. “Sleeping in, Sunday morning bodies intertwined” has got to be the best beginning to a song ever. It makes me feel like the universe isn’t what I think it is. If I listen to it and close my eyes, it’s almost as if you are here smoking grape flavored shisha with me even though you’re 1088 nautical miles away in Sicily. And if I listen to that song 10 times, that means I have 40 minutes and 20 seconds to spend with you in my head.
How I wish it’s easy to bend time and space, but you proved that time and space is nothing to two people who are willing to give it a try. Geez, why do you say things at the right place and time? I miss you saying the right words at the right time!
I miss how we always agree to everything important and argue about everything else. We liked the beach, we loved El Gouna. I gave the rucola pizza we had a perfect score of 10, but you said it was blah and gave it a 4. You played Highway Rider, while I played Subway Surfers. We both enjoyed watching documentaries on NatGeo, but I find the channel less entertaining without you. One time, I was irked by how a lioness devoured a deer, and when the blood splattered across the screen, I realized I don’t have your arms to burrow my head into. Yet I could hear you say “no, amo, look, look, just watch, this is the good part!” And after one documentary, all I’d want to do is just sit and talk about it. Well, that’s a lie. In truth, I just want to sit and talk to you. Or just sit and watch you.
I didn’t think it is possible to just look someone on the face, but you look like you’ve been crafted by Michael Angelo. Where I am round and soft, you are chiseled. Define lines. Define arches. Define bone structure! I can just lose time admiring your shiny cheeks. From afar, you are beautiful, but when your nose is just a centimeter away from mine, damn! And when you kiss me, something inside me just dies out of ecstasy or embarrassment. You look like art, and art always makes me feel something. And you demanded to be experienced.
Whatever happens tomorrow, we have yesterday and today and that’s all I know and that’s all I have to know. I won’t wake up to you tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or even the day after that. I will be listening to our favorite bachata songs on my own. I won’t be making you your coffee in the morning. For now, there won’t be breakfasts or lunches or dinners with you, not even a small piece of tiramisu, but that’s ok. I love you anyway. Because you are worth one more day of uncertainty before we become certain. You taught me to welcome everyday whether or not you’re around. And to let Sunday be what it is.
Three months is a hundred years long, yet again, we’re not in a rush. I know one morning from now, we will wake up to that Prince Royce song and we will want to sleep in. Until then, I love you like I love Sunday.
Rhapsodies of the Barefooted Gypsy 