You're Always Leaving

In every memory, you’re always leaving. White t-shirt, messy hair, at the threshold of my door, holding it open to say a goodbye.

I never ask you to stay. You always leave behind some trinket in my life that you can come back for. In this memory, it is your copy of The Picture Of Dorian Gray. Some other day, I had asked you to read this book. I take my blunt drawing pencil and scribble in soft letters a note— ‘I will always be fond of you. You represent all the sins I had the courage to commit.’

In another memory, I watch you dance with some stranger at a party while someone else runs their hands over me. We came to this party together but I watch your eyes pierce into me from over her shoulder and I know you will leave alone. You leave behind some shattered pieces of a heart, you leave in the middle of her dance.

In another memory, you leave the pen your brother gave you between the pages of my notebook. I watch you walk out of the classroom in the middle of the lecture. You never looked back at anything you ever left behind. Except me.

In every memory, you’re always leaving. But never without looking back at me.

It is dangerous to have rhythm and it is dangerous to lack it entirely. Our rhythm was so familiar, like some bittersweet, nostalgic sitar melody that I picked up from my aunt as a child. You get up from my bed so violently, it wakes me up every time. I don’t miss having your body next to mine but I miss being the thing you stare at just before you decide to leave, the thing you can’t help but look at a second and a third time, the thing you can never not come back to. You get up from my bed so violently, but your eyes only hold softness in their stare. This was our rhythm.
Your back faces me, I say your name. It makes you turn around, every time. I never told you to turn around. The world falls away, every time. I never told you to stay.

In every memory, you’re always leaving. Gashes from my words, apologetic eyes, at the threshold of my door, holding it open to say a final goodbye.