#naruto angst

#past.

Lingering touches faintly seem to caress your back, ghosts of unwanted memories surging from the deep box you made sure they were buried in. Sad, broken eyes - but not really, not anymore - trace the figure of you standing across the street, a bit off kilt and your head in bubble wrap. You can hear, even smell, the memories resurfacing when you see his face, not long forgotten, always marked in carbon behind your eyes. They taste bittersweet, and seem far older than you give them credit for: but it’s been years, even from the last time you thought about him, or that past you still would like to keep forever on the bottom of a drawer in the back of an your head. He’s just that kind of man: one you can have for a while to yourself, and whose memories might warm you up in the coldest of winter nights - but they fade away with time, leaving behind the unconscious void of something-never-quite-there. You can’t explain the surge of feelings, slithering around your back and inside your veins when looking at his form, his lithe steps and the way he holds another girl’s hand and smiles openly, as if nothing could ever bring him grief or regret. And you smile a little bit to yourself, because maybe that is the truth, and the thing you certainly did not have, was not much a thing at all to him. And it would make sense, because as smiles and bruises, heated whispers, choking gasps, the cold wall behind your shoulder blades and the hot mouth kissing the world away, flood and replace your surroundings, he is not looking anymore. He walks past you, shoulder against shoulder and you keep walking ahead, not knowing whether he does turn his head around, even if you can guess where the heated gaze on your nape is coming from, and faintly touching the point he used to worship right above your collarbone, near a little mole you never noticed. The day ticks away, as the arrows on the clock run from each other, but a photo on your old phone refuses to let you leave. It’s him, just standing there - smiling, carefree, yours. But then you look at your phone, and it is your husband calling, and you feel like the time to toss that other phone away has come. A finger hooks on it, and presses the ‘off’ button, tossing forever away the memories, the faint smell of morning sex and wilted flowers, the burnt cigarettes and the idea of him. The past has enough of that, already - and there is no space for it now. Not here. Not with you. Not anymore.