In the beginning, you're fueled by newness and surprise. Every story an adventure, each touch a revelation. Years into the relationship, you might look back on this time of exploration longingly. You might wish to unlearn, just a little, what you know too well in your partner.

But not me. I relish in the rituals and yearn for the knowing. The expectation of his touch, the synchronicity in our movement. Conditioned to arch into his wandering hand, Pavolivian in response. In this utopia, we have our own language. My name replaced by terms of endearment, molded over time until it is unrecognizable and uniquely ours. Inanimate objects, no longer called in the mother tongue. Jokes that you couldn't begin to explain to others, partly because you've long forgotten where it came from and partly because outsiders will never transcend your orbit. Over time, the world we created becomes foremost. In the outside one, I'm alien. In the outside one, I exist to get back to safety, back to him. No, you can keep your shiny penny; I'll hang on to the timeworn, tarnished relics of our love.

Because when he left both worlds, he took ours and left me here. And now it only exists in the corners of my mind as exhibits I visit. Our language unspoken, eroding by attrition. The membership to our secret club, lapsed. The colors of our world fading over time and the fabric of our lives unraveling in my weakening grasp. I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter, not willing to let any more of our world slip out, slip away, even if it means staying forever in this liminal space.