With him it was different, I'd been touched a million times yet never felt it as deeply, his gaze electrified and his existence fuelled me daily to be better and work harder. Depth and insight was what he offered me, a chance to live, love and learn.
We met at college, he was the artsy kid that stood out in an elegant manner, cropped trousers that lightly kissed the ankle, shirts poetically constructed that they seem to form a second skin, hats that added a dimension and jewellery which only he could pull off. He was something other than the rest, different without being cool in a cold handed manner, laid back yet not lazy. The contradictions made him a character and a loveable one at that. He was the one all wanted an opinion from, his blog was popular as was his podcasts and Instagram, he owned the social media platforms in which he contributed to. He wasn't imprisioned by his creations, it wasn't an outlet that was an after thought, rather than being constructed for the sole purpose to communicate an image often constructed and static, his world was real and he invited others in to see and share.
Due to this campus celebrity, I asked myself why me? I was casually cool in a weird way, geeky and obscure, put together yet scruffy, I wasn't great looking just a canvas in which I learned to mould into something that became the someone who then represented the me.
He didn't acknowledge me in school, we were friendship groups and classes apart. I made music alone and uploaded it to sound cloud for fun, somewhere he heard it and featured it on his podcast, within the next month my likes, followers and friends increased and he ended up interviewing me for his next show over dinner, which happened over and over until it was a routine that became a ritual.
With him it could be about the minute and not the hour,minimal moments we didn't have to dress things up as happenings, sharing time was enough. Doing nothing or next to that could be greater than a holiday, a trip or a thought out experience. We had that something that was so rare that not many people got or understood, how another could be drunk of the others energy and appreciate their presence without getting hungover or bored.
When he left I craved him more, in his absence his presence was felt deeper and more acutely, I wasn't needy with him it was just that I needed him. I appreciated the distance when it occurred, it allowed us to talk about experiences beyond those singular yet shared ones we created.
After graduation and floating from job to job, room to flat and the continuous cycle of the modern day rat race, he decided the city to which we belonged wasn't one he could exist in.
Long distance was the only option at first, with phone calls, Skype, flirtatious what's app and sexually charged snapchats. Yet no matter what, digital presence could never replace or come near to the physical. Sharing space in silence at times felt more full than a routine phone call with a days debrief for the sake of not breaking habit when all of our other habits had been replaced. I needed a lover not a digital pen pal.
I let go first, angry that he did this to us, blinded by rage, in a selfish state I ended up on the dance floor, tasting unfamiliar mouths and touching foriegn bodies. I wanted something and received nothing.
I searched the floor of a room I was welcomed into the night before and pushed straight to the bed. The deed was done and all was lost, something special had been broken. In tears he told me he'd began to appreciate another, that nothing had happened but something would. The fuel that fired our love was purely fossils, relics from the past of a time that was no more and energy that was no longer present, we simply belonged to the past. We'd lost a battle that had began a war.
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