Wanderer.

I said a prayer to the god of I hope you never call by here again and spent every night with my hand twisted in the chain of the locket with your photo in it and wished for you to be there with me. I didn't want you, I wanted your arms around me so tight that I sunk into you and we were one or the other and it didn't matter either way.

I wanted walks in the forest where all I knew was the smell of pine needles and your hand in mine and the taste of your lips when we'd stop because you heard a creature that may or may not exist or another stunning, crashing waterfall was just off the path, or just because we could and we wanted to. You carried me when my feet grew sore and later, laughing, I did the same for you. At night we camped up trees, in caves, in a tent that begin to feel more like home than any building I'd ever known, and you were so close and warm and I wouldn't have minded if that dark old wood swallowed us up because I never wanted to leave.

I don't want us, just everything we were. I want the good feelings, those highs that were the kind of incredible you usually only ever read about or hear in songs. I don't want what I have. I'm left with nights like those where you weren't just by me and for some reason that I wouldn't be able to explain later when you asked I felt so fucking sad that I just wanted to sit by the ocean until it lapped me up and pulled me under and I'd shake when I thought about how you'd say you'd come for me, you'd pull me out and save me. You always came for me.

You haven't come for me.

Now my brother's joking with me, he's pulling my hair and he's smiling in a way that almost hides the concern in his eyes but I can't return it, I can barely do anything. It's like you took all that was me away with you and please, Lysander, I want it back. I want me back.

I don't want you back.

You with your wild blonde hair that'd only sometimes be curly and sometimes only on one side. You with your eyes like a dirty pond and your stupid freckles all over your stupid face. You with your arms that could pick me up and spin me around. You with tan and your scars and your one crooked tooth.

I turned on the radio and they were playing a song that sounded like the one you tried to write me.

Lysander, I miss you so much it's like a part of the world has gone. Not my world, the Earth itself. I've stepped out of bed and found the ground gone and I'm falling, I'm still falling.

Lysander, you've still got the little you I made from sticks and leaves and anything else found on the garden floor and I've still got the little me you made and cheated by drawing on a crooked smile in marker and you were right, they should have stayed together, somewhere, anywhere, just together. I'd only wanted a you I could keep by me always, but I'd forgotten that that couldn't ever be you, that you couldn't be tied down.

When we were much younger and I was just a girl with a crush and beaded braids and you were a skinny boy with bruised knees, I imagined the children we'd have together when we were old and everything was perfect. They all had ridiculous names and were just like their father.

Ly, I can't look at the stars anymore. We spent so many nights staring up at them, spinning stories. It doesn't seem right that they can keep shining when you aren't here.

I'm a liar, my love. I've been pretending. But I can promise you one thing. One thing that I couldn't mean any more if I tried. One thought, one feeling, that's been so much on my mind it's as much a part of me as my hair or my hand or my heart.

I want you back.