I’m at the diner where we once sat. If you could return, you would find it exactly as you left it, duct-tape holding together the laminated seats. I don’t show others this part of me. You knew that. I deviated from my usual order of chicken soup. You couldn’t decide between the Athenian and Palermo paninis. I can’t remember which you chose, but you insisted it didn’t matter; they are only 500 miles apart. It was a proper date. Do you remember? It marked the midpoint of our relationship—precariously perched between your promise to make me your girlfriend and the phone call when you told me you still love her. It was the day you shook my father’s hand. ● I didn’t want to write this. It’s not my style to mix the past and present, but your song started playing and it’s taking me back to the moment I knew. It wasn’t when you shared that dreadful Kundera novel with me. Or when you showed me the ring of hers that you wear “just because it still fits perfectly.” It wasn’t when you asked if I would want to know whether I was cheated on. No. You had just stepped out for a run. I knew it was over when I saw you were listening to “Linger.” ● My soup descends like a dream in G-major. I never paid the song much mind until you came around. I never had a reason to, I guess. White knuckling my spoon, it’s the millionth time I’ve heard it but I’m only now listening for the first time. ● Did you know I watched from the window? I wanted to ask you, then, who you were thinking of while you ran circles around my house. Is she the chorus and, I, the melody? Was I merely background music in your life? Just another erotic friend to test Kundera’s “rule of threes” upon? I silenced myself. Neither of us could summon the strength to end it that day. Saltines turn to ashes in my mouth and they taste like the fear on your lips when you kissed me goodbye. It was the kind of kiss that lingers. ● If only you saw yourself as I saw you. To me, you represented hope—free from the burden of wrongdoing, lighter than air. But I was wrong, I was wrong. At the diner where we once sat, I am learning that the idea of eternal return is, indeed, a mysterious one. Will our ending be unchanged because it recurs again and again at this diner? When you tell our story, will men always shake your hand while mine goes unheld? Before the waitress can remind me that my soup is going cold, the first tear breaks through and I am spilling into it. Once and for all, you exist only as a shadow without weight, sitting across from me in an empty booth. ● “Linger” is an anthem of lightness and weight. As I listen, I catch myself experiencing the most incredible sensation. And it’s all thanks to you. If the book you once recommended taught me anything, it’s that lightness can unshackle us from the burdens of deceit and lead to a more genuine existence. To O’Riordan, living in the truth means living compassionately. She invites us to experience lightness by carrying the weight of her emotional burden. To choose lightness doesn’t mean that we pity her misfortunes but rather feel them with her. My favorite aspect of the song is how, in the time it takes to eat a bowl of soup, we experience O’Riordan uncover within herself the courage he never had. By the end, her happiness fills the space of sadness. A final tear rolls into my empty bowl. What was weighing me has disappeared and only beauty remains. I always knew you would make heavy go light. ● Follow @nectar_blog on Instagram
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