I had soap suds in my eyes, stinging me with the sudsy poison, at a car wash in the dead heat of the summer when I first met you. Tears were streaming down my face, and I was grateful I wasn’t wearing any makeup. Without even seeing me or meeting me before, without saying a word, you worked water into my eyes, and when I finally was able to open them, I saw my savior- you- cracking a small smirk that played lightly on your lips. Your green eyes were embroidered with extremely dark lashes, like curtains to your soul, your hair dark and filled with soap mounds, and your summer-tainted skin was glistening and wet.

Without even saying a word you stole my breath.

A few days later we were on our first date, sitting at a round table that was separating us at an unbearable distance. You didn’t force conversation, but the long stretches of silence didn’t seen odd or out-of-place. It was easy, simple, breathless, and beautiful.

Without even saying a word you fascinated me.

Our first kiss was light and delicate, your lips barely grazing mine. I felt the tickled whispers of your breath filling my barely open mouth. I drank you in. Your hand softly traced the line of my jaw, like you were drawing on me, marking me for life. You didn’t push it; you just smiled, letting me know you were falling as deeply as I was. Then you left me, my head spinning in a thousand different directions that all had absolutely no purpose.

Without even saying a word you put me under your spell.

Summer days were filled with you. Riding waves to the shore. Lying lazily out in the sand, soaking up the sun… soaking up you. Late night walks on the beach, your hand in mine. Studying the beautiful stars gleaming over the ocean, flirting with the waves. You didn’t have to interrupt the beauty with talk that wasn’t necessary. Somehow, you always seemed to know.

Without me even saying a word, you had me figured out perfectly, better than I even knew myself.

Late night calls where I could hear you breathing, hear you whispering just the tings that I needed to hear. You listened to me when I complained. You were silent when I was thinking and talked when I needed someone to distract me, comfort me, be my friend. Every night I’d lie in bed, a cell phone in my palm, as I waited for the tingling buzzing to go up and down and through my arm. Like pure, fiery electricity.

Without even saying a word, I fell in love with you.

When I think of you I think of water splashing in my eyes, wiping away the pain. Of soap suds piling in your dark, thick hair. Of quiet dinners where the unspoken taught me more about you than the said. Of delicate kisses as your lips formed against my skin. Of the sun baking on our soaking bodies that were sprinkled with sand. Of lying in bed and listening to your words, coming through the phone, warming my whole body one at a time.

Now all of these things are covered with a final, heavy blanket of pain you caused. Everything is ruined by the sight of you walking away, hardly saying a word except you didn’t love me… that you never did.

Without even saying a word you broke my heart.

I wonder if that’s why you were so quiet, because you didn’t know how you felt about me, how to decipher your emotions. Everything feels compromised, all that I thought was beautiful about you, what was beautiful about us, that summer.

So now I cry tears that burn my eyes like those soap suds did on the first day I met you.

And I wish you were here to wash them away.