orange juice.

I remember you less every day. And that's the problem with mankind we absorb and absorb until there's no empty space left, until there's so much that it overflows through us. A part of me wants to forget you. A part of me no longer desires holding on to your memory because it's hard for me to think of you without the sinking feeling in my chest. Without the reminder that all I have of you are memories, and those, too, fade. I don't remember your favorite color, or your favorite fruit, but I remember that night I woke you up in the dead of night and we drank orange juice. Orange. Your memory to me is orange in color. Maybe that's why orange juice is my favorite flavor, because of you. There's so many things that I do, so many reasons that I am, that start with you Ismat. With your smile, and your giggle, but finally, your tears... your pain. We would've been together for almost 3 years now, with a pet cat and maybe even a dog. I don't remember if you like dogs or not. but I do. I liked you, a lot. I loved you. I have never loved the way I loved you. maybe it's because I'm scared that the next person I love will slip right through my fingers, and the only closure I'll get are the words, "I'm sorry, I love you." I'm scared that it'll all repeat itself, because I still haven't figured out what your death was supposed to teach me. Is it that love is fleeting? That it can be gone in an instant? That everything we build can come crashing down at a phone call? That a heartbeat is worth more than gold? That your heartbeat kept mine company, and now my heart yearns for a love it cannot accept? Answer me. Answer me goddammit. I wish you were here to answer me. Maybe we would've broken up by now, and we would go back to being strangers. It would've been simpler that way, than you being so close yet so far.

I've been searching for a trail to follow, again. Take me back to the night we met. Take me back to that moment that I can't remember, the hey I never said, the kiss I never gave you. I wish I could've been there for you. But I was in fucking Nyeri, getting a stupid education, that at the end of the day I got. That, which at the end of the day doesn't fill the void you left behind. It wasn't worth it. It never will be. Nothing will ever be worth losing you. And the worst part is, I'm losing you again, this time in my head. Life is doing the thing you know? Filling my cup with responsibilities and connections with people that can only be a fraction of you. I look for you in everyone I meet. I look in the mirror and pray that I'll see your face instead of mine. That's the beauty, and pain, of my grief. You are the beauty and the pain of my grief, Ismat Ismail. Now, you can only exist in my notes app. Words can't describe the emotions that you made me feel, words can never describe this emotion, this luggage, this baggage, this load. I had all, and then most of you, some and now none of you. I truly don't know what I'm supposed to do, I'm haunted by the ghost of you.