a series of conversations
it’s nearly four in the morning and over the phone i’m explaining to you the traumatic history which was growing up in suburbia. i’m talking about strip malls, locally owned business which cannot stay afloat, a pale lack of diversity and the freshly manicured lawns which grow and get cut in the slow/violent cycle of husbands and wives who fall in and out of comfortable with each other. i think you’re understanding it, as i’m saying it. love means something different than leaving, even though for me it never has. and never have i felt closer to someone who was so far away.
i coax myself into showers during these mornings without you, bribing myself with the rough promise of feeling scrub against my face and later touching my soft skin and imagining how it would feel as i nuzzled my head into your shoulder if this were any preferred day and i was crawling back into bed with you. i erase the vivid memory of the most horrifying nightmare i’ve ever had and hope for you to wake soon, to say everything will be alright. and from your lips i believe these words i’ve never let past my brain into my heart before.