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You used to hold my hand while we slept, come to cafes to watch me write. You’d corner me in the kitchen, climb into the hammock, interrupt bucket showers in the morning cold. Why do I tend to forget that you wanted me too?

I remember sitting on the rocks looking out at the island monastery with its black dragons carved into the sunset, crabs clacking around us and your turquoise shoes against a tangerine stripe across the gulf. Three silver rings and a white kaffiya. I remember your hair and your perfume, your look and your voice when you said “It’s not fair. I love you more than you love me.”

I was doing it on purpose, you know. Letting you think you loved me more. I took every third or fourth chance, with things I didn’t say, expressions of love that I didn’t return. I was faking a calm I didn’t feel, because you were always in a rush, half-panicked, and I was afraid if you’d known how much I needed you, you would have panicked and rushed off. I was half-dead before I followed you out of that bar. I wanted to be with you—but more, I wanted to be you. With your hard eyes and your half-baked plans and your certainty that everything you did would turn out. I followed you out of that bar and to the other side of the world. Did you really think you loved me more?

Write me.