We Don't Fall in Love Anymore

We don’t fall in love anymore. Not like we used to. Not like when we used to fall asleep each night still wondering, when our memories left us for the passing of dreams, and in the morning, in that fleeting moment between dreams and waking, we looked deep into the eyes of the unknown stranger lying next to us and let ourselves drift into a gentle oblivion.

All that is gone now, spoiled by the soft glimmer of recognition; and I am no longer able to drown in the depths of your eyes. How can I drown when I know the way so intimately, every dip, every crack, every current, every line of dusty river bank etched so meticulously into my memory.

I remember watching you while you slept, tracing the curve of your skin with such delicate wonder, careful not too press down too hard as if the slightest pressure might cause the gentle texture of velvet to evaporate suddenly into nothingness. I remember the fragility of holding you in my arms, of feeling your warmth sink into me, a feeling that seemed so ephemeral, so unreal, that I gripped you with all my strength and longed to grip even tighter so that you would never drift away. But now I no longer hold on to you like a single vine stretching out into the water, instead I lie facing away from you, comfortable in the calm shades of a tranquil ocean, no longer dreaming about what I would do if I woke up and you weren’t there.

Our love used to die every night when we closed our eyes, so that every morning was like a rebirth forged in an endless eternity. But now we no longer die, now the rivers of our passion have dried up and evaporated into air.

But then we breathe air, and I breathe you, need you in that same way, so that without you I would truly die. You are constant like breath, immediate, drifting around me in unseen whispers, so that when you wake up next to me I can look into your eyes, those certain, familiar eyes, and say ‘I love you’. Because we don’t fall in love anymore, we stay in love, and that is everything. And stood on dry land with you I no longer crave the violence of drowning. We will always have the rain.