le diamant

You gave me a blue diamond.

And when you went home,
you took my soul with you.

The sky has been crying for days.
Every now and then, it lets a little light slip through the clouds, just enough to remind me that it isn't night yet.

Last week, I barely noticed the weather.
How could I?

I had you.

I could feel your body beside mine, your warmth under my skin, and for a little while, the rest of the world could have burned itself to the ground and I wouldn't have noticed.

Now you're gone.

And somehow, the sky knows.

I miss you.

My chest feels heavy in a way I can't explain. Breathing should be the simplest thing in the world, but lately every breath feels like it has to travel through the distance between us before it reaches my lungs.

My eyes keep filling with tears for no reason.

Or maybe for every reason.

Sometimes I want to sleep simply because, in my dreams, I can wake up beside you again.

It doesn't matter where.
It doesn't matter when.

I just want to be there.

With you.

So I keep telling myself to be patient.

We will make it.

We will survive this strange little punishment called distance.

We only have to keep moving.

The clock will do the rest.

One hour.
Then another.
Then another.

Until one day there are no hours left between us at all.

I look at the blue diamond.

And somehow, it makes me miss you more.

Isn't that cruel?

Something so beautiful becoming a reminder of the one thing I cannot hold.

Maybe that's the strange thing about time.

People tell us that we get used to pain.
That we adapt.
That human beings are made to endure almost anything.

But I don't think I'm getting used to this.

The pain simply keeps changing its dress.

Some days it sits quietly inside my chest.
Some days it follows me from room to room.
And sometimes, without warning, it discovers an entirely new place inside me to ache.

Still, whenever I feel myself sinking too far into it, I come back to the same thought.

The true diamond is you.

It's almost ridiculous, really.

You are always the one giving me diamonds when you are the rarest thing life has ever placed in my hands.

I usually have too many words.
Too many thoughts.
Too many things I want to tell you.

But tonight I feel almost drunk on silence.

I got lost in your eyes.

And apparently, there is no way out.

Those foxy eyes of yours.

God.

Absolutely mesmerizing.

On our last evening together, you had an idea.

You said that when we finally live together, we should return to the place where we met every seventh of February.

You said it so casually.

As if you were talking about somewhere we might have coffee.

But it made me cry.

Because I already know what will happen there.

I will fall in love with you again.

In the same place.
On the same day.

As if I've never seen you before.

As if my heart doesn't already know every dangerous little detail about you.

And somehow, I'll fall for you all over again.

Maybe I do it willingly.

Maybe I've been doing it from the beginning.

I take my heart out of my chest and place it in your hands, again and again, trusting you with the softest part of me.

I think about the things I love about you.

Your skin.

So soft that touching you sometimes feels like touching something I dreamed up.

Your mind.

Always moving faster than everyone else's, playing chess with the world, somehow already three moves ahead.

Your voice.

So controlled.
So deliberate.

You never waste a word.

And your eyes...

My God.

Those eyes.

Sometimes I look at the diamonds you've given me and imagine they are looking back at me with your eyes.

Blue and impossible.

And then there is the gin.

You brought me a whole collection of craft gins, each one chosen with that ridiculous, beautiful attention to detail you give to everything you care about.

You wanted me to drink each one in the right atmosphere.

At the right temperature.

The way it was meant to be enjoyed.

So now I sit here with your diamond.

Your gin.

The rain against the window.

And silence.

And in that silence, I remember you.

You never leave the bed without kissing me good morning.

You never fall asleep without making sure I'm there beside you.

You make your coffee, and somehow my favourite warm drink appears beside it.

You drink water, and before taking another sip, you offer me some.

You won't start eating until I've had my first bite.

You take the heavy bags from my hands as if the world has personally offended you by making me carry them.

When it rains, you cover me first.

You fight me when I try to pay.

You practically declare war when I try to buy you a gift.

And when a tear reaches my cheek, somehow another one appears in your eyes.

You notice the things I don't say.

You know when my mind is disappearing into itself.

And you never let me stay there alone.

Even when you're busy, you find a way to answer me.

That is what I mean when I say I miss you.

I don't only miss your skin.

I miss the warmth of it.

I miss your voice.

I miss the way it changes when you're tired.

I miss your eyes.

I miss the way they find mine across a room.

But more than any of that,

I miss the way you exist beside me.

And maybe that is what hurts most about this distance.

It isn't only that I can't touch you.

It's that all those little pieces of love suddenly have nowhere to go.

Terrible, temporary distance.

I have to keep saying that.

Temporary.

We will go back to the place where we met.

The seventh of February.

You will look at me with those foxy eyes.

And I already know what will happen.

I'll fall in love with you again.

Not because I forgot what it felt like the first time.

But because I never stopped.

I look at the blue diamond once more.

And for a moment, I swear I can see your eyes inside it.

And I hold on to that.

I hold on to you.

I hold on to the clock.

Because it is still moving.

And every second it takes away from this distance is one second it gives back to me.

One second closer to your skin.

One second closer to your eyes.

One second closer to the morning when I wake up beside you,

feel your warmth against me,

and realize

there is no distance left to count.

Only you.

Only me.

And all the time in the world.