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What do I do with this love?

 


Today I woke up as one does. I had my cup of coffee, part of a routine I don't dare disturb. I wore the same outfit I had on yesterday, it wasn't hard to find it. It was right where I left it last night. And the night before. In a sad heap by the foot of my bed. I couldn't wear my rings, or anything on my wrist, its heaviness would make everything else unbearable. I left the house, keys jingling as I shoved them in my bag. I would struggle to fish them out of the mess when I get back, but that's something I'll have to figure out later.


The bus is late, it always is. By the time I can see its carcass in the horizon, I've already developed a dull ache in my left knee. I wince as I climb the step. I pay the man whose face won't hold a place in my memories, they are already filled to the brim. I take a space to sway back and forth during a journey I know too well. The familiarity of it all is what makes it easy to navigate. It requires no effort to redo something you've done enough to memorize. Your muscles start to move on their own, doing their part in keeping you steady, as the bus sways you. Back and forth. Like a pendulum with achy knees. Back. Forth.


I lift my phone, I hold it tightly because my grasp feels weak lately, everything slips away from me. I click shuffle on my playlist. A song starts. My first thought is that you would love it. I click the share button. We don't talk anymore. The way our chat is so low on the list reminds me. Your full name instead of the silly nicknames I had for you. The lack of emojis when I am known to love adding them. It looks so naked, your name. So formal, so stilted, like the barely there ‘hello’ we share lately. I go back to my playlist. It's another reminder of the pieces you left behind for me to deal with. I don't want to get rid of them, but they leave a sour taste in my mouth. I swallow it anyway. 


When I watched Fleabag, there was a scene where she said : “I don't know what to do with all the love I have for her.” At that point in my life, I lost friends, and I gained more, and I was in that sweet spot where what I gained overwhelmed what I lost, and I felt balanced. The love I had was already given to someone better. None of it was wasted. 


Now, I'm not sure I feel the same. The love I have for you wouldn't be a fair weight to put on anyone else. I don't think it was a fair weight to put on you either, but you seemed to enjoy heavy lifting. So I poured more, and it spilled. There's no use crying over spilled milk, so I didn't. I just kept going, with a huge hole in my life that looked suspiciously like you. I laughed at how absurd it was that I didn't have you anymore. I went on my regular visits to my shrink, and I smiled and told her I was okay. I was doing as well as I could. Not a hitch in the peaceful succession of my days, not a stutter. A river flowing seamlessly. 


It took a week for me to go back. She upped my dosage. I was frayed at the edges. 


I can't say that I miss you, because I never expected I'd have to. I can't say I want you back, because the thought alone repulses me. It would be impossible for me to find that love again. It spilled, you know? All over the floor. And it was absorbed into the earth. I hope the soil finds a better use for it. 


You're everywhere. Sometimes it's infuriating, and I wish I could pull on it and get the convoluted roots out of me. Sometimes it's comforting, because I knew you, and it felt like the days when I didn't have to think of a life without you. Sometimes it breaks my heart, because I don't want to blame you, but if I don't, I'll blame myself. I'm tired of blaming myself.


I'm still surrounded by love, and still give so much of it to so many others. I still have it in me to look at our pictures together and smile. When the bus sways, and the dull ache in my left knee makes itself known again, I remember that your back hurt the last time we were okay. I get the urge to ask how you've been, to accompany you to the doctor's, to look at the xrays and see physical proof that you'll get better. I don't. I sway and listen to a song you recommended me when you had it in you to recommend me songs.


I will never forgive you.



Marwa Damaan

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