This Is How You Try To Move On
You take screenshots of your favorite text conversations as far back as your phone will allow. You print them out. You put the photos in a box, and you put the box in a place where you don’t have to look at it unless you want to. You delete the original conversations from your phone. Just because you’re not ready to let go, doesn’t mean you have to carry him with you.
You block his number so you can stop staring at your phone 1000 times a day and wonder if you finally crossed his mind. This way, you don’t have the physical emptiness under his name there in your phone to remind you that you didn’t.
You search for any traces of him in your room. You collect all of the stuffed animals he bought you and you shove them in another box, or in a garbage bag if you have to. You also put the journal that he bought you in there, along with the skull night light.
You take his shirt that he gave you to burn on the last night that you saw him, and you fold it. You think about the dream you had that night. You remember the conversation you had with him on the phone at 5:00 o’clock the following morning. You remember how he said he loved you back. You shove the shirt in the box with everything else he’s ever given you, and you realize that most of them are just afterthoughts wrapped as gifts.
You look at the box and have a moment of silence before you close it.
You allow yourself to keep the necklace though; the shiny crystal heart on a chain, that changes colors the same way his eyes used to. You smile every time you look in the mirror and see that, shining against your midnight wardrobe, the necklace is bright yellow; a delicate fragment of sunshine captured in a tiny little heart. His heart, the one thing he could never give you completely. You smiled because the necklace symbolizes who he was: a light in the dark.
You wash your blankets and your sheets from the nights when you slept in his shirt and accidentally made your bed smell like him.
You forgive yourself for being so crazy. You box up all the physical things that remind you of him, but you can’t declutter your brain or your subconscious. You can’t rid yourself of the dreams that haunt you. So, you learn to wake up at all hours of the night as soon as you see his face.
You numb yourself with alcohol, books, and Netflix. You try to avoid characters who have the same name as him.
You paint your nails his favorite color and pick at the scabs until they bleed.
You forgive yourself for falling so damn hard in the first place.
You baptize every corner of every room in your home with tears and prayers that he finds what he needs.
Even if it doesn’t end up being you, you pray for the strength to never become his enemy.
© Gina Clingan 2020
From my book, A Light In The Dark 💛
available on Amazon now! Grab your copy here: https://amazon.com/dp/B08KZBCDC5
