He says he misses me.

He says he misses me and I shut down like a bear trap or maybe a better analogy is like a zip tie; things are good and only heading in a smooth linear direction but the words pulled at my heart and now I’m so tightly twisted up in my head knowing he’s not the one that I want and that I can’t be released without cutting myself out of this knot he’s created. 

He is not you. His touch isn’t yours. His voice doesn’t soothe my muscles more than hands ever could. I won’t kiss him because his isn’t the intimacy I want; just an answer to an itch that needs a momentary scratch. He’s a bottle of wine to make me forget whereas YOU are a bottle of wine that turns me into liquid poured into you and you into me and I don’t want to be missed by HIM. 

I want to know that some part of you longs for me too. I want to know that you also wake up and hold your breath and reach out with eyes closed searching for the warmth of me only to find an empty space where I should be.

I want to know that you too get lost in your head during menial tasks thinking about what our lives would have been like if you’d asserted your wants, YOUR desires. What if you’d confessed then what you confessed not even a year ago. What if... 

What if you just showed up at my door? What would you say? Anything? Would you slip me into your arms and just hold me? Would you feel like home? All these years I’ve just wanted to “go home” despite being in the home I’ve created for my children and what if this entire time it’s your arms that are the home I’m homesick for?

What if there were a knock at my door and it were you? Would your mouth taste the same? Would I know it’s you by the scent of your shirt with my head resting against it? Would you leave me again out of fear that you couldn’t live up to what you felt I deserved?

He says he misses me and all I want is your everything.