Georgia, you know that you've been on my mind
Georgia, we've both learned to compromise
I'll be there for you, when everyone's coming unglued
I'll be there for you, I won't say you have to choose
But I don't want to let you go
I don't want to lose you slowly
I just want to let you know
That it's only just a little back and forth lately
Georgia/Hanson
The sun is rising. I have just awoken, and you are still asleep. Rays of sunlight sneak past the gauzy curtains and make their way lazily across the floorboards, revealing the dust motes twinkling in the air. They fall across your face and you squint in your sleep, turning your face away; they traverse the planes of your back and caress your skin, highlighting the bits beneath your backbones and turning your tanned skin into a tawny gold.
I close my eyes, reach out, and touch whatever part of you I can reach. Is it really you? You stir under my touch and open your eyes briefly before dropping back to sleep again.
You seem too much like a dream to be real; you have been gone far too long and I haven't yet adjusted to the feeling of having you here again. Loving you is like this. It is disconcerting how fast I fall for you, time and time again, and I abhor the feeling of missing you when you're gone. You are here, briefly, then you are gone again, someplace I have no way of knowing. I wonder if love is so exciting or uncertain for other couples, but then, of course, we are the exception. Loving you is like this.
I lay out your flightsuit for you on the back of the armchair. I also leave a sandwich on the dining table wrapped with a paper towel, and a mug of coffee that is still steaming when I leave the house. I am not quite sure that instant Nescafe and tuna speaks unmistakeably of me, but I hope you think of me when you eat the breakfast I have prepared for you, even if the tuna might be expired and there probably isn't enough milk in the coffee.
I spend the commute to work listening to Collide on repeat. Our collision was very long ago but somehow I am still reeling from the aftereffects. Is it supposed to be this way? In the crowded train, the press of bodies around me keeps the feeling of not having you at bay for a while. The presence of all these other people makes the nonpresence of you not so conspicuous to my heavy heart.
Whenever we're together, you are so easy with me it almost feels like you take us for granted. What if one day the plural of "us" doesn't exist anymore? I wonder if you think about me the same way I think about you when we are apart. I see you in the shadows cast by the lamplight and the trees in the evenings; when I am walking on the streets my hand is at a loss without your hand to hold. Our house, especially the bed, feels too big and empty without you.
When I return home from work I find the coffee mug in the sink, the foam on the inside of the mug long dried and crusty. You have left a note saying when you might be home and that I shouldn't expect you because the date is uncertain. Isn't it always? It is hard loving someone who is gone so much of the time. You could stop existing at any time and I would not know. Would I feel the loss of you instantly if you died?
Sometimes, a solitary plane flies across the sky where I am, and when I hear the rush of the plane I look up and trace its trajectory. The sky bears scars of its passing long after it is gone, the white trail of cloud like a deep gash, lingering starkly against the blue. Somehow, the planes are always lonely in the sky, like how I am lonely without you.
I look at the plane and imagine that you are the pilot inside. I think of you, sending messages across space and time, hoping somehow you will be able to know I am still here, waiting for you. Wondering where you are, saying to myself again and again like a prayer, I love you, I miss you, come home to me.