“it’s what i signed up for”

OPPOSITE SIDES OF WANTING TO BE GOOD 

You will not fall in love. Because falling sounds graceful, it sounds controlled; like jumping off a diving board into a bright clear pool. No, you will not fall in love.

Those you do “fall” in love with are the ones that won’t last. They are the kind strangers on trains and the one-night stands that lasted two weeks too long

You will not fall in love. Because that fall will hurt the first time and you will remember it each time you get ready to jump off that diving board into your new lovers arms.

You will be afraid.

You will back away. Clutching the bruises on your arms from hitting the bottom of that swimming pool. You can never truly be sure just how full that person is.

You are still afraid.

I am afraid, you will fall in love.

It will be 10:30 on a Thursday night and you will be on the phone with a close friend as you change into your pajamas. You will joke and unbutton your dress shirt as the words “i love you” slip from your lips like they were lathered with soap. You stop what you’re doing and look down at the body of water below you.

You hear a laugh and your heart drops as you back away from the edge of the diving board. Then they say it back. And the sound is like the gentle kiss of sea salt against your cheek. They love you. You will not fall.

Icarus did not fall into the ocean. He dived willingly after being scorched by the flames of the sun and the ocean greeted him with sea salt kisses and an embrace of waves. He smiled as he was pulled under, his burns turning numb and his wax wings cooling. He did not have to fall anymore.

You are sitting on the floor of your hotel room and you are afraid. And because you are not often afraid, you are even more afraid. They ask you what’s wrong. You say you don’t know. They tell you it’s okay to not know.

It is okay not to know. Your obsessive tendencies, clawing through the surface of your own self-preservation techniques to see what is truly underneath is scorching your back. You can feel your skin blistering and your shell you used to protect yourself is tearing itself away like a dying conch.

You need to know. Because the thing you are more afraid of than knowing you are a horrible person is thinking you are a good one and being wrong. Their words are gentle but erode at you until you are left soft, sad, and vunerable.

They say that they love you again and for once you can actually believe it. You tell them that you promise that you just need a little time to collect yourself and you promise that you will be the person you were again. They say that they love you regardless, and it leaves an imprint on you that carves itself into your own bones.