And I wonder why it always comes back to you.

The licks of warm brown in your eyes, liquid and soft. The way your face can be gentle and your lips parted slightly and your gaze concerned, your dark hair falling just above your eyes as your head tilts and you silently ask me, are you okay? 

No, I want to say. No, I am not. How could I be okay when it always comes back to you? 

I hate that about you, about me, about how we can fall together so easily, a smooth click and it's like we've always belonged like this. Laughing and teasing and glaring and scowling, and I hate that it always comes back to you. I hate how your hand lingers barely a second too long, even now, and I hate how it threads just the minutest shiver through my spine, like it is trying its hardest to whisper we could be something again. I hate it, because no. We cannot.

It's been three years and yet it always comes back to you. 

Your face crinkles into the dumbest expressions and your eyes glint with mischief, and your voice is too loud and your laugh rollicks too long and still I love it. You can't smile at all for the camera but when there are no lenses your grin is almost too big and you run your fingers through your hair, pretending to toss it over your shoulder. I'll call you trash and you'll fake offense until I apologize, both of us laughing. You'll make fun of me and I'll leave in a huff and you'll turn on your puppy eyes and say, wait, don't go and I'll roll my eyes and stay. 

We didn't act like this before; we used to make it seem like our relationship was as fragile as thin ice. Now we throw things and break them and we come out fine. We aren't the same people, we don't fit together the same way but somehow it always comes back to you.

I hate you sometimes, because in some ways you haven't changed at all. Not a bit, not in the way your tongue sometimes slips and your words slap me across the face. Not in the way you don't realize and plow on, oblivious to your own wake. Some things haven't changed at all, like your pride and your caustic comments and unintentional cruelty. I hate you for it, but perhaps what I hate more is that every time I promise to never talk to you again, we come back together.

For every lash across the face and tear, it always comes back to you.

Some of you has changed, like how you can lean on me now, how your face can soften and melt the cold anger. And I hate this too, because your lips are still chapped and your fingers are still warm and somehow everything has changed and yet nothing at all.

I'm not in love with you. I'm really not. Three years ago, my heart bled dry and there's really nothing left to drip into love for you. I don't want to hold your hand. I don't want to kiss you.

But somehow, it always comes back to you.