Now, it seems, you’re just a memory in my mind

I pick up the phone, hoping you’ve replied, but all I see is an empty inbox and incinerated texts after 24 hours have gone by. I’ve forgotten to turn that setting off, so this time, I disable the auto-delete timer. We last texted on Tuesday. It’s Friday now, and I haven’t heard back. My restlessness gnaws at me. I distract myself by working. I try to read the last pages of the book I’ve been reading for weeks. I watch the TV shows I should have finished months ago. In between, I check my phone, but there’s always just one check mark on the side of our chat.

Is this how drug withdrawal feels like? The rush I felt when we first got in touch slowly slips away, but I’m still clinging to the last threads, hoping they would pull me back into euphoria. Before, we engaged, throwing words hot enough to set our bodies on fire. Now, there’s silence, apart from the quick, orchestrated greetings. I can’t find the excited self you posed to be. Now I’m only looking at a photo, a version of you I was hoping to see in the flesh.

I want to feel the feeling of falling in love, the feeling of my skin tingling in anticipation. To have someone to look forward to seeing, meeting, talking to. A body to know, to learn, to explore. A physique to use in times of need. The rolling waves in the pit of my stomach, the sudden grin in public that catches me and the nearby passersby off guard. Scenarios drawn up in my mind, each ending up in fields filled with the scent of the sun, the flowers, the grasses.

We’re in the car, speeding at sunset, hands intertwined when yours aren’t switching gears. I glance at you, thinking your eyes are on the road, but they meet mine. The longing, desire, and burn, I’ve thought of them as mine. But now, it seems, you’re just a memory in my mind.