who invited grandma?

The thing I think we can’t figure out is which of us really would do it, and I hope you know what I’m saying. I don’t mean come back from the dead or wait forever; you know I’d come back for you. We were born waiting. I think the mistake is believing in the wrong righteousness, in thinking that I am what I try to be, instead of just trying. Or mistaking what righteousness is altogether. Is God kind? And maybe that’s what gives it away, that kind of big-headedness. You compare yourself to God and it’s all over, you’re the guy with the shinier hair, the newspaper smile. But I’d burn it down for you, if that’s what we’re saying. My reputation. The whole country. You know the ugly truth of it. How little I can care for anything I don’t love. Why should I forgive anyone? I’ve got you to live and die by, judge, jury, executioner. Burn the rest up. Red and then blue and then white, white hot. You’re the coal at my core and I’ll keep you there, no question. A man of unswerving loyalty, principles. So maybe I can see it. Fine. It’s true I’ve been afraid of one thing my whole life, but there’s that second, bigger thing, more frightening. And the important bit: we both know what that is.

No one else ever made me feel more like I could crack the world open like an egg and eat the inside. That I could even see it? Miracle enough. The red thread running through everything. The obviousness in the way you looked at me, even the very first time. Did you know? I know I’ve asked you this. I know what you’ve said, but I’d promise to believe in God just to swear to him you did. You took one fucking look at my face and you had me like I was born for it, just that: you making me laugh. And I believe, I do, that I could have been. I believe in the red of your hair, the softness of your body, the viciousness of your mouth, the glow of your eyes in the dark when it’s just us at three in the morning. I trust your hands, I take your advice. Your car at night in December, the way you confessed that you knew this song made you cry every time and that’s why you liked it, crying as you said it. Shut the fuck up, you said. I know, I know. When it gets cold out, when I see ice on water, when I eat a perfect bowl of pasta. The way you can level me with a look and drag me back up with both hands, the way you love me matter of fact: like I was made for it. More than enough.

I miss you so bad some days I don’t know what to do with it. I know it sounds stupid, with how we talk every single day, but you’ll forgive me because you know what I mean. I know you do. And it is stupid, because we’re not writing each other letters in a war, it’s 2019, I can watch you roll your eyes at me across state lines. The video quality keeps getting better and soon I’ll be able to agonize over the way the dust motes float over your shoulders in that city sunlight slanting in through your apartment windows. I’ll be able to whisper goddamn to myself and you’ll be able to see the word itself sitting there before you crack up laughing. Fuck you, by the way. A few months ago when you said all that about your laugh? I love your laugh. It’s big and loud, has all your angles, proves it makes sense the way your cheeks go round above the bones. I think all the time about how I could say this to your face and you’d believe me. You’d probably tell me to shut up, but. I like the truth between us. I’ll tell you a secret: sometimes I like the distance, too. It’s not that I’m contradicting myself, though I guess I do that, too, all the time. It’s that I love how much of you I can keep to myself, the way you’re mine entirely to everyone here who has to see you through me, the way they ask me about you and I get to hand out the answers like jewels. But I’d give it up. There are days I know I’d give you back over to everyone if it meant I could sit on your living room floor in that dust, in that sun, your hands in my hair, talking shit about whatever is on television. Begging me to pick dinner because you never can. And already I know you’re not mine like that, but you are, aren’t you? You are.