I still have everything. Every ticket stub, every picture, even receipts.  I have a notebook full of my memories of you and the things we did.  I recorded everything, because I always knew it would be too good to be true.  You thought it was silly, you even laughed at me.  But who's laughing now?

Hopefully still you, because I can't stop crying.

It's really ridiculous, what I do here in my room alone.  On camera, when I see my co-workers, I can smile and pretend that I'm still all in one piece.  But then I go back to the hotel room and my shrine to you.  The pictures, my journals, and this damn stuffed cat that I got because it had orange fur.  I take it to bed with me each night, but it always ended up on the floor.  I must be pushing it out of the bed, the same way you pushed me out of your life..

Oh fuck this.  I'm pathetic.  I'm just sitting here moping while you're getting on with your life. The life you had before me.  The life you never wanted to leave.  The life I would never fit into.  Because honestly, look at me.  I'm a skinny momma's boy from New Jersey, you...you're...something more than that.    You know who you are and where you're going.  This confidences have always escaped me.

But I'm making you into a hero again, something you made me promise to stop doing.  You would gently place your hand over my mouth, tell me to stop, that you weren't anything special, that you were just plain old Peter and I was just plain old Michael, and would I please just watch the movie and stop over-thinking things?  Easier said than done.

It's not that simple for me to just shut up and go along with life happily, but you never understood that.  Not like I expected you to, considering the things I never told you.  You would ask me why I would hold you so tightly every time you said goodbye, even if you were just leaving for a few minutes.  I would blush and tell you that I didn't know, that it was just a habit.  And you'd give me that look that said that I was a total nut and that silly smile, and you'd walk out the door.

I couldn't tell you why.  I couldn't tell you about 15 years ago, about how goodbye is a terrifying word for me.  And so we just went on together, with me clinging to you for dear life and you in turn holding me tightly.

I used to have this bad habit of watching you.  If I could divert my eyes from whatever I was doing at the time, I would watch you, even if you were doing something as mundane as shaving or brushing your teeth.  You had a variety of reactions to that one, to telling me that I was scaring you, to acting like a total goof, as if you were mugging for a camera, to developing the tendency to do things naked.  I can only guess that it was an attempt to make me too embarrassed to watch you, but I just took the opportunity to learn ever curve of your body.  And when you would see me watching you still, you would come over to me, hold me, tell me that you weren't going anywhere, that you would be with me forever.

But you lied.  You did leave, and I know that it was because you needed to be happy, but you're still gone.  And it's just like it was last time.  The exact same way.  Fifteen years ago, I kissed a man goodbye, thinking he would only be gone for minutes, and never saw him again.  Last week, I kissed you goodbye, wishing you good luck for your match on Raw, and you never came back to the hotel room.

I know the right thing to do is to give you up, but dammit, I love you so much.  You are the first person in fifteen years to make me feel whole. You made me feel alive again because you were so alive, so warm, so animated.  You made me believe that I didn't do anything wrong the last time without telling me or even knowing what had happened.  You just made me believe.

I should put my memories of you away.  I should find the box that I keep the pictures and notebooks in, but I don't want to.  Because I know that in that box, in contrast to all my memories of you, will be one sheet of paper lying there.  A newspaper article, taunting me, because it is the only memory of what I had before you.  It was the only memory he would let me have, he was so paranoid someone would find out about my relationship with him.  Just a single newspaper article, the headline "college sophomore killed in car accident."  The only memory I have of him, and it's one from too late.

I have so many more memories of you, happy memories.  Yet the hole you left in me feels like an aching cavern.  I would not dream of denying you your chance at your dreams.  I do not resent you leaving me, because I never really believed you'd stay.  But God, I miss you.
 
 

I've been so alone for so long
Forgotten by the world
Forgotten to myself
Your effervescent eyes have awakened me
And brushed the dust away
But I knew you'd never stay

So I memorized the color of your eyes as I lost myself inside you
And I memorized the way our legs entwined as I drifted off beside you

I miss
God I miss
Waking up beside you

At night I cling to you, I'm so afraid
Afraid the day will come
And I'll wake and find you gone
But you promised that you'd not abandon me
And kissed my fears away
But I woke up to that day

But I had memorized the way our eyes
would meet reflected in the bathroom mirror
And I memorized your naked silhouette as you slowly brushed your hair
I miss
God I miss
Waking up beside you

I've been so alone for so long
I forgot how much it hurts
To wake up so alone

But I memorized how warm your body felt
as you lay half asleep beside me
And I memorized the way the sunlight
filled the room and played upon your body

I miss
God I miss
Waking up beside you
I miss
God I miss
Waking up beside you