Tastebuds

"I miss you, and we’ve never met. And maybe we have, and I have no idea, but you aren’t here now, and I’ve never hated anything more."

This poured out of my fingertips today.
I'm pretending to not understand why, why I would think any of this, why these thoughts would appear.

But let's be honest.
Those words don't come from nowhere.
I am a girl cursed with timidity and a lack of experience in all things romantic, but with a heart bigger than I can handle. I have the capacity to love with vehemence, but lacking in the outlet of...you.
Any you, really. A you that wants to share a little slice of life, a long walk, real words and spontaneous moments. Spontaneity above all.
I know what melancholia is. I know what it is to miss something you have never had. Frustration is made all the worse when you so deeply desire something that barely exists in your hemisphere.

Eyes...glaze over. Tunnel vision...takes hold. Thoughts swirl and I remember a night that feels eons ago. I had run, run outside to feel the brush of my first snowflakes, falling gently around me, melting into my pulsing skin and burning curls. I opened my mouth, and those snowflakes singed my unrolled tongue with their fervent cold. In my hand, was my phone. I couldn't wait to tell you, the very real you on the other end of the airwaves, about how my heart was widening with the newest sight. Snow! I was bursting with excitement and naivete and I wanted to taste it, taste it all.

That's really what it was for me. The taste. Taste is like electricity in my mouth, and snow was something new. It brushed my tongue with something I'd never known, with cold and wet and melt. I couldn't describe it to you, I remember that. I was so happy to tell you about it, and you listened.
Oh, that taste.
It didn't taste like you. I didn't know that, then. You...you were all heat. You tried to be soft, but you couldn't help it-you tasted of roughness and urgency and kindness. And Nutella. You tasted of your newest experience. Did I of mine? Did I taste of snow, next to that ocean, that night? Everything about that night, that time, was new and full. I felt full, of everything you were giving me. And you gave me so much. And you tasted of all of that, and potential that would never be, and I was absorbed into you as you sunk your teeth into me. You ate me up, that year, in every way. I was spent, each night, from your ravenous appetite for my vitality and for everything that made me alive. You. Ate. Me.

And now, years later, all I can hope is that I tasted as new as I felt.