Pas Volé, Mais Perdu

Paris 10th arr, few minutes past midnight. 

My friend and I finished our dinner after few glasses of fermented grapes, 
a cup of tea recommended by our overly friendly waiter, 
and 40 minutes spent waiting for our desserts, 
which I assume were made by order and not some ready-to-serve sweets. 

Everything about our meal was nice except my side dish.
Maybe pumpkin cream pie with orange zest just was not for me.

At the station, I bid her adieu and took a left turn to the aisle where metro line 4 is. 
Metro station performers are always interesting. 
My favourite ones are those groups of tiny orchestras that sell CD format of their performance and those accordion men who often (if not always) play french clichés such La Vie en Rose or La Valse d'Amelie.

But my soundtrack that night was a lady, singing Ave Maria with no instruments, stood beside piles of dull bags. 
The station wasn't crowded nor empty, but her high-pitched voice added a blend of eeriness, echoing through the walls as I kept walking. 

I saw those with tired faces, 
those cuddly lovebirds, 
those travellers who took inconvenient time just to get better ticket fares, 
or even those who were just on their way back home, observing people like I did.

I wished you were there to see what I was seeing & 
I wished you were there, 
literally and figuratively.

Because there are way too many things I'd like to share with you. 

From countless of trivial unimportant stuffs, 
to personal secret thoughts. 

That tender feeling of being connected through words,
like morse codes invented and used only by us.

Where did it go?
Stolen by reality?
Lost in between memories?

It's even harder for me, because I know you're not there,
and yet you're everywhere.

In photographs and in songs.
In books and in films.
In certain conversations and certain scent.
And every time I stumbled across all of those thing,
I was reminded of the agony that you're no longer there.

And as the metro stopped from one station to another,
I was getting more and more overwhelmed by the bitterness of all the possibilities we've lost — and all that we couldn't ever have.

You see,
missing you is not about how long has it been since the last time we saw each other.
It's about that very moment I found myself doing something and wishing that you were there, 

in my life.

So many songs, movies, books, discussions, laughters, inside jokes, secret thoughts and feelings I'd like us to share.

So many more memories I'd like us to create, 
and even so many future-tenses I would add to our life,

Because once, you made me feel as if we were made for each other.