the intimacy of never talking again - by maisa

I read it this morning, and it stuck with me all day. I don’t know why, but I’d blame it on the fact that it happened to be the best day for it, an estranged person’s birthday. There’s a sick kind of closeness in silence. Why does it feel more intimate to never speak to someone again than to text them “Happy Birthday!”? Someone I used to know is a year older today. I know that not because we still talk (God no), but because my brain is a haunted archive of useless information about men who always end up in relationships the second they’re done picking through the folds of my brain and the crevices of my body. This person and I are estranged for reasons beyond my control. And don’t go thinking I like them, miss them, or even think of them often… I don’t. I really don’t. But I feel close to them. So close. Closer than I do to that one ex who’d come up to me in public with that awkward, yet familiar half-smile, like he just saw a ghost he once made out with. Or closer than to the people I

I read it this morning, and it stuck with me all day. I don’t know why, but I’d blame it on the fact that it happened to be the best day for it, an estranged person’s birthday. There’s a sick kind of closeness in silence. Why does it feel more intimate to never speak to someone again than to text them “Happy Birthday!”? Someone I used to know is a year older today. I know that not because we still talk (God no), but because my brain is a haunted archive of useless information about men who always end up in relationships the second they’re done picking through the folds of my brain and the crev