columninches
I've been single for four weeks now, and it's hurting like new shoes. Damn they look fine, but by the end of the night they're hurting, and I'm longing to have my old pair back again. It was my choice, I had outgrown you, and the thought that you weren't 'the one' had been pinching my heels for four years.
But I cried all the way over to your house, and when you opened the door I loved you more than ever. It was buttery weather, and we went over to Polly's pond, counted six frogs three swans and four golden retrievers along the way, felt happier than I had done in months.
"I think maybe we should split up."
Five o'clock, and my words hung innocently among the clouds of early midges, thick in the afternoon sun. Yet they were terrible words, and I wished I could catch them between my hands and squash them flat before they bit you. You took my hand and we walked back the way we had come, sat on the edge of the pavement and listened to the sound of the motorbikes chasing each other around the pond. I couldn't give you a valid reason, or an invalid one, or anything worth holding onto.
I dyed my hair, I bought a new frock, I went out on the pull with my best friend. I phoned you, drunk, from a bar in Manchester, to tell you... What? That I loved you? That I missed you? That I was being chatted up by a bloke whose line was basically that we were both unattractive, so we might as well get it on? Well, no, he didn't actually say the words 'get it on'... He said, 'we might as well...' and then put his hand on my thigh. Your thigh. I phoned you to say I belonged to you.
Belonged to you. Past tense? I don't belong to anyone else - their lips feel clumsy by comparison. I have coated myself in make-up and covered myself in fat, so they cannot reach me.
But yes, past tense. I'm getting used to walkling on my own, to wearing the clothes you dislike, to hearing your voice, finding your letters, without feeling a great lurch of longing. I feel alive again. For the first time in years, I belong to myself.
clb