“The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.” ~ Woody Allen

We fell in love and grew together only to grow apart later.

Although we’re sleeping in different beds now, we’re both covered by the blanket of reminiscing. We are staring at the empty walls before us as we lay our cheeks on the pillow of agony.

You may not be here physically, but you are here in every other form—I can feel you in the hot water that runs on my skin and smell you in every splash of perfume that I wear.

And although your virtual self is present right now, I know it won’t abide.

Time will make me forget you and forget us. It will wash away our memories like waves washing away the shore.

Time has a weapon that is stronger than you and I, that will shoot our past and kill it with no return.

It will pack our good times in a bag and throw them to the sharks while space will bury our kisses below a headstone that reads “Gone with the wind.”

But the problem isn’t that time and space will make me forget you.

The problem is I don’t want to forget you.

I am holding on to your virtual presence like a child holding on to his toys. I’m afraid they might slip away from me because if they do, our memories and love will cease to exist.

I’m like a cold person in the middle of a desert who’s insanely throwing fuel on a fire so it doesn’t go out.

I don’t want the fire to go out—I want it to burn as bright as it did yesterday.

I don’t want to forget anything that has to do with you or us—it’s a hard thing to do.

Holding on to a memory is like holding on to a cube of ice in the sun—in no time it melts and we feel water dripping through our fingers.

You’re that cube of ice that I don’t want to melt.

Never before have I feared the future like I do now—it’s standing on my door and knocking but I’m turning a deaf ear. For how long do you think will I be able to ignore the sound?

The sound is getting louder by the day as my heart agitates with fear.

I’m thinking about the consequences of forgetting you. It’s a thought that brings agony, a feeling that I’m not quite fond of. The knowledge of the fact that you won’t be permeating my days brings me a sense of frightening emptiness.

When this happens, know that I didn’t yearn for it, nor did I ask for it.

Life swiftly passes us by—we have no choice but to buckle up and join the ride. And if I ever do forget you, know that it was never my wish.

My wish was far from growing apart. But as it happens in life, we rarely get what we want. If we did, I’d be by your side writing odes to your soul rather than writing these melancholic words.

Although I wish you wouldn’t forget me, I know you will. Just like time will be against me, it will be against you as well. It would be selfish, cruel, and illogical to ask you to keep my presence forever in your soul.

I can’t change the direction of the wind—I can only sail where it’s blowing. Perhaps one of these days we shall meet again in the ocean of the future. Maybe your ship will find mine and who knows?

Perchance the wind would finally blow the way we have always wanted it to.

I know forgetting will happen sooner and later…so go ahead and forget me.

But I can’t promise you I will do the same.

Because my problem still is I don’t want to forget you.

Yet.

Author: Elyane Youssef

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: Pixabay