today you nailed the problem on the head when you guessed what was wrong with me, saying this is how you act when you’re up to no good, and you know what’s going on but only because i’ve told you. only because i let too much slide. and my love is like an honesty potion. i douse you in the whole truth of myself and wait for you to light the fire and let it burn. you have read every secret, yet you cannot name my command. fuck, fuck, fuck.
the water was trickling around your body and pooling on the valleys and peaks of your lips when i discovered you there, i’m not drowning you said, i’m alright, i’m alright, but i sense your lies as always. learning young to go on the misdirected gut instinct to believe in your words. i leave you to your naps. i am not drowing.
you held me as though to remind me that you mean and meant everything and over the calm stuttering of my heart i heard you whisper, i want so badly to mean nothing to you right now and i thought about telling you about this poem i wrote, a week ago; i thought about re-writing it to describe the new saddest feeling i’d ever felt; i thought about whispering me too. but i knew i’d mean it. i want so badly to mean nothing to me right now.
i never said i love you without taking back, maybe because i loved you too much. fuck, i’d say if i could say it to your face and i’d mean i always loved you, i always love you. hear that? i love you. i love you, i’d say if i could say it to your face and i’d mean fuck. i’ll never make the same mistake again. i’ll never turn away from me when you hold up the mirror of who i could be and i choose to wait and date my destiny.
all of these pretty little rain drops creating prisms and loud crashes of thunder do nothing but remind me of our faces pressed against each others while our eyes looked into our souls and tried to pull the meaning from our lips while our lips remained motionless, pressed against each others.
i guess i’m just not so ready for all of this so i surrender, waving white flags made out of the pieces of flesh i’ve cut away to share me with you and i don’t know what it is i should do: so you make peace. dividing up the land that is me with yr hidden agendas and false alliances while i was just waiting so peacefully (now i’m just) growing older and growing more and more fertile each day; i hope you’re happy. i hope your people prosper.
i whisper in your ears at night when you sleep; every day i breathe and walk and live but in the night as i rest i haunt you. i do it so intentionally. your words bruise in a way that your fist never would have. leaving my soul tormented while i die, again again again again, in my dreams and your nightmares. your eyes, when you let me see them, cut through my flesh so that i must use needles and thread to sew myself back together after ripping and tearing the fabric to a new shape.
loop, loop, thread, pull. cut. cut. cut.
i’ll follow you everywhere because we promised we’d never leave each other but i guess one of us did i still love you you know i still feel every time your heart beats the wrong way even though i’m so far from you and even though there’s someone else and someone new it doesn’t erase the fact that you were all there was and i can’t justify this, i just can’t do this story justice it was too beautiful and too poetic and too tragic for words so instead i’ll just use motions
when finally i become an exposure, a negative image of an object, inanimate in every capture, i’m going to haunt you.
haunt you.
you pull the skin back on my arms and reveal an intricate web of scars mapping constellations of freckles that never formed on the surface, secretly you justify i like the imperfections, and you continue edging your way up and down my spine on your hands and knees finding every fleshly memory and i ask of you, what now? what is it that you seek? you don’t even waste the breath to answer me, instead remembering the time when we were only eighteen and nineteen sitting in your truck and you watched me show you every scar like a map of my perceived misfortunes. as ubruptly as you entered i make you leave until i am alone so i can watch the scar engulf your scab on my arm.
i just wish this blood i bled for you was enough.
fiona apple kisses my ears while i drive through this snowy winter looking for something more than all you’ve given to me, but this love is all i have. you are all there is and i keep ducking in an invalids attempt to escape fallen short as the brakes lock and my head crashes against the wheel i hear a solemn scream: forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive me.
smooth and unaffected by the world around you, you glide through the water in search of me and my flesh, my blood, my heart, you desire. the pumping begins so slowly one-and- two-and- three-and- four and then faster, faster, faster, faster five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelvethirteenfourteenfifteen. stop. i split my vein to stop the pounding, giving an exit to the heart that craves only its escape. i am. exposed. your breath sharpens. gasp. it is only as you wake you finally exhale and find you are not the undefeated hunter of the sea but the fish in the bowl it is i, you see, that goddamned plastic castle you always hoped to escape in so many little kisses one-and- two-and- three-and- fourfivesixseven eight. this will be the last you hear from me.
i keep taking little bites, chewing bit after bit and swallowing in a desperate attempt to find sobriety so i weigh my options. funny how i’m stuck awkwardly in the middle of this fight (literally in the near middle, not figuratively) and funny how you each guard an exit. as i weigh my options i side with you: because i want to offer my advice but know its neither warranted nor summoned. you offer gratitude that falls upon my averted body and our shoulders collide, the only intersetion in this room i’m abandonning.
if everything you say is true then turn around and walk away and find a home that doesn’t make you feel this way. our words shape themselves differently; all you have is all you’ve sought.
this, this is why language sometimes fails me.
