what time and distance has done to us.

it stopped hurting.

i stopped feeling your emotional closeness.  now it’s pure distance, hollow and empty and covered in clouds that cover the ground around me with snow.  your warmth isn’t even a memory, just something that happened to me a few times.  just something to recall, but no matter how hard i try, i can’t summon your arms from the recesses of my memory, i can’t taste your kisses any longer.  it all feels impossible and forced, unhappy and empty.  i don’t want to write to you.  i don’t want to hear your voice.  i don’t want you to burden me with your sadness, and i don’t want to harness you with mine.  or explain to you that the only reason it hurts is because i feel guilty for feeling nothing, for thinking of you as an obligation instead of a pleasure or a necessity.  i used to stay up late, anticipating your emails, so that i could sleep with your words freshly painted on my mind.  now i forget, i climb into bed without even a thought of you, and run across your note the next day.  now, sex is an embaressing topic, our feelings feel more awkward than ever, and i don’t remember the last time i saw or heard the exact words "i love you."  i stopped saying them too, taking a cue from you.  because nothing feels worse than saying those words and not hearing them back.  but it’s better to mean what you say than to pretend…