Hello, i called you today, there’s no point pretending not to know who you are. Only you could compel my heart to take flight and plunge simultaneously.
I called to say I miss you.
I let the dial tone explore every inch of my being that was momentarily reduced to the precision of a click counter, once; my hopes were high, delirious at this lapse in judgment that could either be madness or bravery. Twice; i stumbled over myself to form witty phrases that might immediately express my gladness that you are tangible and to layer beneath mere witticism the depth of my soul, and the broad despair it feels without you. Thrice, I began to pull from corners all that should have been done and dusted, “If we were a record”, I thought, “we would have sung our goodbyes in the final chorus and burned all possibility of a bridge”. The fourth time amazed me by how each second that held an age could be represented by a polyphonic tone. It seemed to hesitate as much as you (looking at my number flash across the screen) might have done. The “Rs” were offensive.
The fifth, sixth and seventh begged me to cut the line, to end the battle against self-worth. What it could not have understood was how there wouldn’t have been this specific self, this shadow poised to hurl herself at heartbreak with such lack of self preservation, without you. I would not have existed as I am had it not been for you.
The Eighth filled me with doubt, I pictured scenarios whereby you were in the shower, oblivious that I was making this first contact after three weeks, I readied myself to leave a message. The ninth saw me flirting with the idea of hanging up, the idea was smothered before it even began. The phone call had almost completed its course, one last halting ring and all would’ve been resigned that you were occupied, physically absent or comatose from your afternoon golf game (it’s saturday, you always play golf on saturday). But instead, in answer to the million questions that flitted through my mind during those 9 pregnant seconds, came the most eloquent well-composed reply.
Two words to my three, as numerically different as it was in sentiment,
“Call rejected”.
