Don't stay awake for too long

I come and am suddenly overwhelmed with a urge to get. this. down. I throw the covers off the sheets and scramble for a pen and paper. Under an old jersey from the Love of My Life (yes, I still wear it) I find a receipt. That won't do. I almost run into the living room as lightining strikes light up the windows, and therefore my undressed silhouette. Who cares. The neighbours are ten years my junior, anyway. Let them look.

I loved you. I loved you and I didn't even know it. Or maybe I did. Maybe I used to tell you I loved you and I just no longer remember.

I spoke to him earlier that day. I found a memory and wanted to share it. I don't remember when we last spoke. I don't remember why we stopped speaking. I have a terrible feeling that it may be because he loved me.

I grab the laptop off the couch and open a new tab to find what exactly he said. Instead I find a message from another friend. Matt put a ring on it! accompanies a photo. I cry immediately and briefly. It's not joy. But I'm not sure what it is.

I write a hasty reply - joyful! - then find the message I wanted to see. Literally half our lifetime ago.

My breath gets caught in my throat reading it a second time. Don't say it, I think. Don't say it.

I know what everyone thinks love is. Romance. Marriage. Two children. But that's not what I mean here.

What I mean is I had the most tender of feelings for him. I loved him. I would tell him everything. We would lie on the sun in the grass. And he wasn't the only one. And that's okay. In fact, that's perfect.

And now? I ask the air. Thunder crashes in response. My silhouette is lit once more. The scar on my left knee shines.

I love no one. I let myself love no one.

Earlier in the day, I found myself sat outside my favourite bar - one I'd visited twice in a week, a rarity now - with two friends to my right. Initially I didn't realise, but one was pushing the other towards me. All I felt was her lean on my shoulder. I genuinely thought she was cuddling me. For some reason, I wasn't surpised. I reached out and stroked her hair as she leaned. And I instantly realised that I hadn't been so intimate with a friend in years.

I rack my brain in the dim glow of the screen. When was the last time?

Three years ago.

A roommate and I. I saw him just last week for the first time in three years. It was beautiful and hard at the same time.

But three years ago. I specifically remember hugging after playing pool. In the same bar where I found a great hat, which I later lost. Our neighbours were there. They asked what was wrong as we hugged a long time in silence. Nothing, we said. We're just really good friends. And we were. We'd dance in the kitchen. Always Chuck Berry. Drinking on the balcony. Crashing in his bed when we had parties and my bed turned into the coat rack.

And what happened there? I loved him. I don't think he loved me in the same sense the previous friend did. But I don't know where it went wrong.

I close the laptop with a snap and sit in the darkness. I hear the rain on the roof.

I read the other day that the only ones scared of dying are the ones who aren't living right. Maybe I've got it all wrong.