Here is some of what time hasn't taken from me yet:
The night we met. How much taller you were than I thought you would be. The pills you took for a stubborn cold that left you feeling legless and serene. Sidewalk chalk and wind chimes. Day-long conversations about everything and nothing. A plush giraffe on your shoulder. Hope and fear heavy on mine. Loving red wine stains off of our lips. The sliver of a crooked smile. Sleeping in stereo. The turquoise mask that hid your eyes. The wig I never saw you wear outside of a photograph. A sand-filled vase falling over. The sound of you sighing into the mouth of your telephone. The dream in which you were a disembodied head belching flames, and all the other blurry mind movies that twisted the knife when we were pulling apart.
It was the lack of urgency that ate away at what we tried to build together. We both wanted someone who couldn't breathe without us. We couldn't be that for each other. "I need you to need me," you said. And I did. Just not the way you needed me to. I couldn't get you close enough to fear the idea of you falling away from me.
I could make us different people. Paint us as we wished to be. And lose every fought-for memory.
We aren't lovers anymore. That part of our lives was over a long time ago. But a little less than twenty years after we last held hands, we're still friends, bone-deep and true. That feels like something worth celebrating.