This Used to be Easier

by Katia Rose

That’s when I realized I wanted to be close to her—as close as I could be, for as long as she’d let me.

She was my favourite person in the entire world, and now she’s just a ghost that flickers out of view every time I spot her.

I stopped trying to re-write the past in my head because I realized it was never going to line up with the future. She went one way and I went the other, and it’s way too late to turn around and go back.

I wanted to let it grow and bloom like something delicate and rare that would stop the whole world in its tracks with just how fucking beautiful it was someday.

“I didn’t want to lose her. I kissed her because I felt like I was losing her, and for some reason, I thought that would pull her back.

The girl I’m crying for doesn’t exist anymore, and neither does the girl I was then.

She was always doing that: planting these little moments of kindness like tiny seeds for the universe to watch over and grow. Being around her was like walking in a garden. Every few feet, there’d be some new bloom to stop and marvel over, some perfect spray of stems and petals with just a touch of the wilderness that always seemed to cling to her like a perfume.

She’s a poem unfolding in front of me.

and just when I finally realized what she meant to me, she was gone.

This small town made us into small kids with narrow visions, and maybe I don’t need blinders to feel safe. Maybe what I really need is to open my eyes wider than I ever have before.

It’s always been me and you. Even in the years spent apart, I was always looking for her in everyone else I found.

There’s comfort in forming yourself to fit a mould. There’s stability. You worry less when you have less options, but it all comes at a price I’m tired of paying.