You know what I remember most?

The silence.

I spent years wrapped up in you, after we met on a calm summer night.

Summer breezes now remind me of your hugs, and I hate that. The late summer night we spent tucked into each other in your jeep was the first time I’ve ever let a lover see me cry. You held me soft, for the first and last time that night. It’s strange to think that it’s been almost four years now, since we met.

Sometimes I think about our last fight. We screamed so loudly at one another, you threw the weight of your passions at me, but it didn’t matter in the long run. We never listened to each other. We were like refracting magnets, always at odds. Eventually, we fell apart. Like an ancient sculpture in a flooded courtyard, the only thing we could do was leave.

We weren’t meant to stand together, I know that now. You always slept on my side of the bed, I could never get used to that. I had only ever dreamed alone, now I lie awake and wonder how I ever did.

The first time someone asked me if I missed you, I didn’t say yes. I hadn’t been lying, I didn’t miss you. I only longed for parts of you, not the whole thing.

Like, your arm. Not both, just one. The one that fit so perfectly under my neck at night. The one that coiled around my shoulder like a snake, holding me in place.

Your love was less like a hug, and more of a vice. When you held me, it felt soft. Your grip was strong, but it felt as if I could shatter if I tried to break loose.

In the end though, I didn’t shatter. I burst into an urgent flame, the heat from my chest sears off parts of you I had wanted to keep.

We loved like a heat wave; warm, but suffocating.

I hadn’t meant for our love to look like this. We turned in on ourselves like crumpled bits of paper.

There hasn’t been one part of me since, that has reallly wanted to turn around. I knew that last day, I had to leave you behind me. The last time I saw you, I knew I had made the right choice. You had turned yourself into a match head, waiting to strike yourself on a rock, just to burst out in flames like you had done when you ignited me the first time.

But I’ve long since snuffed that fire out of my veins. I am not made of fire anymore, just ashes and charred flesh.

I’ve always enjoyed the smell of gasoline in the air, like a scent to remind me to come back home.

Slowly, I had been cleaning my burned soul, cleansing the tarnished walls that still stood.

It’s been years now, since we held one another. Last night though, I thought about you. About how you had been the first person to light the match in my head, and the last one to notice I was on fire.

I used to sleep with a radio on, or a fan. But you always said that sound kept you awake. I had learned to be familiar with the quiet, now whenever I hear music in the dark, I think about you.

How you would have traced your fingers down the bend of my spine, pushing each vertebra back into my body. I had almost forgotten the sound of your voice, until I heard that crackling static from a song we had listened to for a whole summer. I’m unable to hear anything at night now. I committed your silent slumbers to memory, like a page in a memoir.

It’s not fair; we used to love loudly, like a concussion rattling our brains, everything always echoed. We spent days on end without the quiet hum of comfort.

But now, whenever I think about you, all I can remember is the silence.