nothing lasts forever

Sometimes I still wear your shirt to sleep at night, because within its voluminous folds I can sometimes capture that feeling I had when we were still together, the sense of utter security and safety that accompanies the knowledge that somebody loves you for all your virtues and vices, if only sometimes.

Sometimes when I lay down to nap, I can still feel your fingers dancing whimsical trails down my back, and even though I swear I'm not ticklish I still harbor the urge to squirm against your phantom touch. Sometimes it was easier to fall asleep when our limbs were tangled together (but a lot of the time it was just uncomfortable).

Sometimes I forget that I'm a thousand miles away from "us," physically, mentally, emotionally, temporally.

Sometimes you still call me, and sometimes I pick up, but our conversations usually end awkwardly now without any closure or conclusion and sometimes I wish you hadn't called, because I was getting oh-so-good at pretending you were only a fictional character from some deliciously cliche piece of literature and no, not a real human being with whom I had real interactions, for whom I had real feelings.

Sometimes I wish I could cover the details of my past experiences with a thick layer of snow and start anew on a fresh white canvas, but I know that the snow is only a temporary fix and that even before it disappears on its own people trample through it until the paths are once again a gross mess of dirt and mush and ugly green salt crystals. Sometimes I wish people would just stop--stop walking through and messing up my sidewalks and acting without thinking and unearthing the dirty memories I worked so hard to bury, dirty because they were so raw and I so vulnerable.

Sometimes there's nothing more comforting than the knowledge that nothing lasts forever, not the snow and not us and not sadness or loneliness or heartache.