HJ, have you ever taken drugs?

I asked my ex-boyfriend to tell me what coming up on drugs felt like. (I’ve never taken any)

He said it was like listening to your favourite band live while having an orgasm at the same time

I smiled

He said ‘do you think you’ll try them once?’

I smiled

‘Do you not want to just see what it feels like?’

I didn’t understand that he didn’t know that feeling unless he took something. That my body changes frequency when he holds me. That when the sun rises you don’t automatically wonder how you got so lucky, that when you see one flailing hand at a gig against the stage lights you swell because you know that they are feeling it too, that when someone says ‘saw this and thought of you’ you figure that your whole entire life is worth fighting for.

Has he not seen the way the light catches the water, the written messages on the inside pages of books, the seedling pushing through the dirt. The songs the artwork the kissing. Was he not there when he looked at me?

“You won’t know what it feels like if you don’t try it, HJ”

I watched him snap a bar of chocolate from the fridge, the condensation growing around the warmth of his hands. I Wondered if he had anything that would help me feel it all a bit less.