I'm Sorry

 How does one get angry in a long-distance relationship? 


We live 60kms apart, me shuttling between classes and him leaving for work. One year apart, our lives are different universes. 


But somehow we shared the same big bang, and our worlds somehow, over some 4 billion years, came to orbit each other. Bringing our own solar systems, spinning with no end, trapping each other with our own gravity. Except we held on. 


How does one get angry in a long distance relationship? Through texts. Through meteorites burning up through the atmosphere, tearing through each layer of air like paper walls and shadow shields that fall in the face of our gravity. 


Why do you make promises you can't keep? Why do you say this stuff when you know what I'm going through? Please please lemme do this for you❤


The meteorite strikes. It crumbles into the earth without a sound. Is a crater still the end if it doesn't wipe the slate clean. 


The first time you got angry with me in person, we went quiet. The domesticity of the Airbnb went away: the morning we had spent making breakfast, doing laundry, kissing each other as we did the dishes. Our feet somehow tread unfamiliar terrain as we walk around the room, unsure of the next step. We looked, our eyes met, and we parted. For a moment. 


For a moment. 


Do you know thinking of you next to me is how I get myself to fall asleep? 


Curling my fingers in your hair leaving me grasping across an empty pillow and an ache that I can only describe as an implosion of a void I didn't know how to cope with. 


The first time we got angry with each other in person, we hugged after 10 mins. It was our first night together, our first trip together, a lot of our firsts. 


The second time you got angry with me in person, I made you wait in the rain for 30 mins. I thought coffee would only take 10 mins in a neighborhood 10 mins away and I came home to you refusing food from my hand. Not hungry, you said. I said ok. 


Didn't notice the sharpness. I should have. 


I...


Tonight, your anger was concern. A promise broken. Your love not sleeping. Hurting myself hurts you. And when you know, there's no other, choice, that I've been trying so hard. 


I want to be better for you. I want you to stay. I don't wanna hurt you so I try not to hurt you or me.


I... 


Chicken momos at 2am and all I can think about how lovely the night would be if we strolled through this beautiful campus hand in hand. What it would be like to walk in the grass in winter dew or cuddle up in bed underneath the fairy lights and the posters and ticket stubs from last year. 


Mister you, do you believe me when I say I'm sorry?

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