Salty

I am a woman of many soft spots but my biggest, by far, is for you. What I mean to say is that a lot of things still make me think of you; the Golden Gate bridge, black coffee, cherries, the movie we saw on our first date that I really should stop watching but is somehow always on TV. My softest spot, like a bruise I don’t remember getting. Like I woke up this morning and my thighs are purple and my friends want to know why I’m being so reckless. I push it to see if it still hurts and it does, and it does, and I wonder when it won’t. I wonder when it won’t. You kiss other girls and it makes me loathe being soft. I delete your number and make sure that I don’t have it memorized. I imagine every unknown missed call is from you even though it’s never the same number twice. Sometimes I imagine a world where I do not apologize for being too gentle. A world where I can drive to San Francisco without turning around and my friends are not worried about me. I do not cry when I know you are in town but don’t stop by and I let other boys put their hands on my thighs. What I mean to say is that a lot of things will probably always make me think of you, but I am thinking of myself now too. I must be soft with myself now too.

Sometimes, I’m the mess. Sometimes, I’m the broom. On the hardest days, I have to be both.