Rik

No matter how many lovers you go through, no matter how madly devoted you are to the person you're with, no matter how caught up you are in an affair, you're always going to have at least that one person.

The one whose text you'll always gladly reply even if it was 5.45 am in the morning even though you really do need those extra 15 minutes of delicious shut-eye, or the one you'll always linger just a smidgen of a moment longer for whenever you say goodbye - just enough to plant the possibility of a more intimate farewell, but not to let it grow.

You're more tender when they say hello, you're softer when they touch you, but when they go away, it's okay. You just shuffle along getting on with being you. They can be gone for anything from a sprint of a second to a couple of years, but they've assumed permanent residence inside you. Cosily, comfortably coiled in the recesses of your head, waking up to stretch for a bit whenever you're a bit quieter, mentally going through your brain's phonebook while blankly sipping on tea or just zoned out on the commute to work.

It doesn't actually have to be love, rather a version of it. It is possible that you could even have hated them for a while. But the way you remember them is unscarred. All you have are flawless memories of how they make you feel so good, an idea so romantic that when you see them again, all you have is an overwhelming fondness.

You both have your own lives, but they'll always be sincerely, undeniably, lovingly, a part of yours.