treading water

I. i’m the kind of asshole who will stand on the other side of the room the whole night, silently hoping you will touch me. why ask for the things i want when i can do nothing and complain? very sensible.  perhaps i’ll go outside and beg the dead trees for money, next. II. all this is to say that if i don’t ever find out what your hands feel like on the backs of my thighs i will set this goddamn house on fire.

August came that year with a shudder and a sigh that left me reeling. When you define months with “continue,” even their necessary passing grows harsh.   She is not the first person I’ve loved, but she is the second. My sheets are dirty when I write about her, but she always sleeps in them anyway. I touch her in apology for the times I did not. I gave up on God at sixteen and science by twenty but I find reason in the veins I can see through her porcelain skin and miracles in the blood that flows through them. With her “believe” no longer feels like an admission of guilt. September passed without my consent and suddenly she was here shouting “faith” like I might be capable of having it.

I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.

i. so you weren’t mine but god was i yours and maybe you didn’t know that but i think you did and that’s why you used to come back around every few weeks. ii. there’s midterms this week but i’m sitting in study hall with who i think is your girlfriend and when she walked in i felt like throwing up but to my credit i didn’t. iii. you asked me who i hated and i wasn’t honest because it’s her and it always has been since i saw you two together. jealousy is a bitch but i’m worse and it kills me to say that but i’ve never been the liar out of the two of us. that was your role. iv. i won’t be bitter but i won’t be better either and that could cause problems but we aren’t friends so it’s fine it’s fine it’s all fucking fine. v. can i be honest? if i could go back in time to two years ago and take back that message i sent, the one that started this, i would. i wish we had never met.

Let it pass Let it die It’s gone; it’s fine. I’ll tell you the story some day but for now, Let’s stay quiet. Let it slide Let me stay. Or not. I can leave if you want. But It’s grown unseasonably cold and all I can say is I want you again.

I had a dream you fell off a cliff and I was only upset I didn’t push; I had a dream I was holding someone else’s hand. I know you don’t believe love can be soft but you did once, and I guess that’s why I still dream about you sometimes. One day I’ll run out of words for you or my throat will close but until then I will say: I have never known love more tangible than my elbow against your ribs in that cathedral and those sidewalks may have held us in but damn, you were freedom. I may never find myself inside of you but you’re never going to love someone by the light of day again and I feel sorry to say that babe, you’re gonna fall.