Placebo

Oh, hell.

If you're ever around, in the city or the suburbs, of this town. Be sure to com around... (Placebo. A band.)

Nostalgia is swirling around the things I remember about you, making me miss you, even though it's been eight years since we were... the way we thought we'd always be. Five since I gave that final fuck-off push. I'm tired of posting about people I miss. I'm tired of missing people. I wish I knew how to fully kick you out of my emotions. You can stay in my brain, that's fine.

If you ever leave her (not likely) or she leaves you (slightly more likely) I'm going to tell you I fucked up big time. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have left you. I wouldn't be asking for you back. I just want you to know that I know.

This has nothing to do with my situation now. I'm happy where I'm at, and who I'm there with. But I realized a long time ago that leaving you was a mistake, and I've never gotten the chance to tell you.

I can't believe how long ago that was. Back when I still thought someone else could save me. We were going to elope, we were going to be happily homeless. We were young. We were also smoking hella weed. God, I fucked up.

I don't have anything left of you but memory. I had a box with pictures and notes. I printed out our emails. But a jealous person threw it, and everything I had left of you and several others, away. I don't have your shirt. I don't have a single fucking picture, not even from prom, which we ditched to go get trashed. I remember the sound of your voice, but not how you smell. I barely remember how you feel.

If it weren't for Facebook, we'd have no connection at all. We don't have the other's number. Your girlfriend seems to forbid speaking to me. I think she forbids speaking to anyone with a vagina, though. Fuck. I fucked up.

I'm in another relationship. And I'm happy. So why do I miss you? I don't miss the ones between you and now. Really, the only reason I can think of is because I know I fucked up. I know I left the one person who would have stuck with me. And I hurt someone. I think my childhood ended while we were together. I wasn't fully an adult, but I lost a lot of innocence

I'm fucking crying. Crying over a person I haven't touched in five years, haven't seen in three. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'll probably never know how it affected you, but surely it did. To some extent. I wish there was a way for me to let you know. I know I play the unrepentant bitch, but I'm not.

And I bet you have no idea you haunt me like a ghost. I doubt you even think of me. Where I obsess of the past, emotions, mistakes, and ex-lovers, you obsess over your exact place and ratio in the universe, you struggle to accept that you're neither a messiah or the antichrist. You have your guitar when I just have words. I can't even write you a song and hope that someday you'll hear it. I have no way to tell you.

Maybe this has all come back up, again, because I'm scared of the future. I'm pregnant, and that's fucking terrifying. I'm 600 miles from what most people would term 'home.' Because I was never as safe and sure as when I was in your arms in the basement of the Turbo House. I was never as carefreely happy as when we hunkered together in friend's houses, watching the snow fall. I will never again be as unafraid of the future as I was when we lied in that hammock. We told everyone we were going to get married. And we meant it.

The person I was there bears almost no resemblance to the person I was then. I'm on the other side of a drug addiction, eight more years of dealing with mental illness, and a bad, bad four year relationship that cumulated in a miscarriage. Those are the big things. There are also a billion little things, each one touching me in some small way. Like an artist erasing and redrawing a single pencil stroke a day for years.

I go for months only thinking of you occasionally, in passing, in relation to a funny story or some such thing. And suddenly, boom, you're back. I wish I could figure out why.