You Are Still Here

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You’re still here, still in my dreams, my thoughts, your name is still on my tongue, voice still in my ears, your words still floating around taking all the space in my head. I still think of you in ways that feel like theft. It is not that it feels wrong to think of you, you are still someone I love and care for, I know you still love and care for me, so no, I do not feel wrong when I think of you. The feeling is similar to that of theft, the buzzy feeling of taking something that is not yours to take.

I find that you are never far from my mind, instead always passionately and nearly draining. The drain is easy to spot: the sigh when I realize how I have been thinking of you, the grunt when I turn your name into a moan, the annoyance when I stare at your picture for too long. You are still here, and I don’t want to get rid of you. I don’t want to part with that drain or theft. What does all of this make me? What does it mean that I want to keep stealing these inappropriate thoughts of you?

I am not sure. I am not sure what this all makes me, all I am sure of is that you are still here. You're here when I sleep, freely moving in dreams. Some nights you just pass by, others you let me indulge in all that I miss. I wake up from these dreams with an in-between feeling, not upset and not fully happy. You are still there when I sleep, and when I say that, it holds weight beyond dreaming.

Because you’re still there the moments before I go to bed, and in those moments, I choose for you to be there. There is a six-minute voice memo of you speaking to me. Speaking on love, queerness, blackness, waywardness, and the capacity that touch bestows. And before I sleep, I still choose you for those six minutes. In that time, it is as if you are in the bed next to me, pouring your mind out to me. It is all I could ask for and more. The ability to know your mind and desires. What do those six minutes mean in the long term? What does it mean for me to steal those minutes?

Still, you are there when I sleep. When I toss and turn, your name still slips from my tongue. Your name slips from my tongue often, but in these hazy moments, I grasp onto your name for comfort. My body still thinks you will ease me to bed, and my brain lets it indulge. When I wake up from a dream where you are gone, a dream plagued by your lack, my body grasps onto your name as if it will make you appear. What does that make me? What does that make my body?

And what does it mean that my body is always calling on to you? When I am out of breath and overcome with pleasure, my body still calls on you. You are still here, and I am still turning your name into a stolen moan. My body must have gotten used to extracting that pleasure. My body must believe you are still at the hands of all its pleasures. If that is the case, what does that make me? What does that make my body?