Words I Didn't Say

I have some explaining to do...

You looked at me with those sad eyes, shaking your head as if you were legitimately sorry. But the apology never came out of your mouth. Instead we stood there in the street, and your voice broke the silence, echoing through the night. "I just couldn't do it!" you yelled, throwing your hands up in defeat. "I couldn't be the perfect guy you wanted me to be. It was too much!" I remember pursing my lips into a smile as I tried to blink back the tears quickly rushing to my eyes. I shook my head and even laughed a bit; anything to keep me from turning into a puddle on the concrete. "No," I whispered, just loud enough for you to hear it. "I never wanted or asked you to be perfect. I knew from the moment I met you that you wouldn't be any kind of picture perfect fantasy. I wanted you; I just wanted you to be here for me." We stared at each other, your hands shoved into your pockets and my arms crossed over my chest, trying to keep all of the pieces of me together. It was the first time you never tried to make it better, and it was the last time I watched you walk away from everything we had become.

Once upon a time you were a prince suited up in a black sweater and we rode off into warm, summer sunsets in your beat-up car with the windows rolled down and the radio blasting, you singing all the words wrong and my laughter rising over the bass. You opened doors and for months your voice was the last thing I heard at night and the first thing I woke up to. I had grown up reading fairy tales, and while it was clear our dysfunctional life was far from magical something about your hand in mine sent sparks up my spine. I spent months mourning the end of our story, the part you never hear about in the books or movies, the part where you realized that there were more sunsets out there with different songs and different people and you left to go find them while I found myself stuck in the rubble. I thought our story was the end of me but as I picked up the pieces I took tiny steps towards the moon and realized that you were gone but the world was not. Once my tears dried, I danced and laughed and fought my way to a place greater than any I could have reached with you. Every now and then I see that sweater or hear that song and I think of you but it doesn't hurt anymore. There was a time I thought you were air but now I know you were water in my lungs; I am the center of my life and the one I have to breathe for.

You showered me in rose pedals and held my hand like I was a precious heirloom that you were terrified of losing or breaking. I'd catch you staring from the corner of my eye and the look on your face, I swear you looked at me like I was walking on water, your own little miracle in the middle of this redundant little town. Then one day it all stopped and I could feel your fingers slipping from mine and myself stumbling behind. The day I saw you looking at your phone instead of at me I felt my heart lunge into my throat and soon enough you stopped calling, and then, you stopped answering and I knew but god I couldn't just let go like you. I came crawling on my knees my mouth dripping pieces of my soul and the words I'd always kept close but I spewed them all into a puddle at your feet as some sort of offering, hoping and praying that it would be good enough and that I could convince you to stay but you had your sights set on bigger dreams than you and me. Sometimes I look back at that and wonder if there was more of me I could have poured out for you and if it would have been enough, and other times I sit on the floor wondering if I ever managed to pick myself completely back up and how much of me slipped through the floorboard cracks that day. You're miles away and I don't dream or cry about you anymore, but sometimes I wonder how you are and where we'd be today if you still looked at me like I hung the stars and I held you tight since I know what it's like to watch you leave.

I've grown up seeing strength defined as being concrete walls who never bend or break even as the weight of the world is on your back. I learned that crying is for the weak and vulnerability is seen as a grave flaw in character. Over and over again my tears were hushed to the chorus of "Big girls don't cry, don't be a baby, don't be so sensitive." I've heard it since I was no bigger than a rose bush, and I'm 20 now and I still slam on the breaks for birds and cry at sappy movies and hell, sometimes I can't control the tears rushing from my eyes as if they were a broken dam all because someone raised his voice in my general direction but that does not make me small and powerless. I am just now learning that strength is not always how stoic you remain when the world is burning in flames all around you because even Superman fell victim to kryptonite but that didn't make him weak or stop him from fighting back with clenched fists and stubborn will. Sometimes strength is holding up your baby sister as you're sitting in a hospital cafeteria, even if you're crying so hard you want to throw up; sometimes it's hyperventilating on a bus after you get a phone call that shatters your world, and then pulling yourself through all of your classes anyway; sometimes it's just being able to wake up every day when you spent the night dreaming about throwing yourself from the tallest building you can find. I may be a tiny walking disaster most days with tear-stained mascara surrounding exhausted eyes, but I am a survivor who has seen hell in the form of broken promises and shattered hearts and too-bright hospital rooms and freshly dug graves; I wear my cracks as battle scars and still wake up every day with my fists swinging, clinging to all that life can still show me. Wearing a cape does not make you a superhero, and hiding your feelings and tears will not make you strong

In a perfect world the words "the news" would be associated with good things instead of fire and wrecks and missing children. Scraped knees from falling off of bikes and grass stains from sliding during recess would be the worst thing that could happen. In a perfect world you would find the thing you were born to do and chase it every day of your life; you would wake up feeling challenged and fulfilled all at once instead of nervous and lot and so very anxious about where this life is going and what it all means. In a perfect world the word hate would come solely from the mouths of children discussing spinach and never strung together with words like crime and so many words ending in "ism" would be struck from all vocabulary because we could finally love our neighbors sincerely and fully, without pride or religion or gender even crossing our minds. In a perfect world you wouldn't have to watch the people you love suffer from diseases that we spend millions to cure but still have no guarantees or reassurance for. We wouldn't have to know too bright rooms and silent bedside vigils through tear-blurred eyes. In a perfect world there would be light and love and laughter and happiness, the kind you have when you're a child chasing butterflies and lightning bugs through dewy grass on balmy summer nights. The kind you ache for in empty apartments after a long day at work. In a perfect world this reality we live is just a thing of nightmares tucked away in dark corners, while we're stuck here dreaming of things that could be if people put love and kindness before money and success and selfishness. This is not a perfect world and it never will be, but I will never stop chasing that potential in the kindness of a stranger holding a door, the warmth of a friend bringing you coffee "just because," or a sibling giving up the last cookie because they saw you reach for it too.

i. You were first; the start of a story, a new chapter in my book. Things were sweet like ice cream by the lake and stolen kisses on park benches, laughing as strangers stared while they passed us by. You stroked my hair and told me about your family I'd never meet, and I told you about the hometown you'd never see. It was as innocent as we were. ii. You should have been first, but life threw us a curve-ball that neither of us could quite hit, and so we spent days just missing each other until finally we collided for a short, beautiful while. Your kisses tasted like whiskey and every one left me a little more desperate for your touch. You held me like you never wanted to let me go, but then you did, and I was left with the worst hangover of my life. iii. You shouldn't have happened; every brain cell I had screamed at how terrible you and I were, but I couldn't stop. You needed an excuse to leave her and I needed a reason to hate myself, and we both succeeded. I learned quickly that using people will only leave you empty but you never saw it; maybe there will be a day when I can forgive us both, but now there's only regret. iv. You shouldn't be on this list, but there's something about our 'almost' that I can't quite get over. You were my almost goodnight kiss in the glow of the porch light. My almost hour long phone conversations about the meaning of life at 3 am. My almost end of the aisle groom. My almost porch swing partner fifty years down the road. My almost soul mate, my almost future.

Some days he was as sweet as the chocolate he sent me on Valentine's Day, his voice a whisper, his lips the start of a smile against my forehead, and the words "I love you" floating with the stars. Others he was bitter as the coffee I spilled all over the floor as he didn't call me back for the fourth night in a row, his inbox filling with my cracking voice, mine filling with "I just need some space." He had a knack for planning, and a month went into the day when I walked into my room to find him there, military hair, tired eyes, and a satisfied grin as my jaw dropped right along with the bags I was holding and I ran into his arms. Yet there were still some days that his impulsiveness got the best of him, and I woke up to calls of hazy nights with bottles of Jack and ink words staining his skin. The same impulse that led us to a conversation about a girl with a face I'd never know. He was honest but he lied. He was a lover but he was stubborn and selfish. He wanted me so much he promised me a life and love and a future, and then he dropped me like a piece of trash in the back of his car, never giving me a second look. I loved him, but he was human, and I'm still trying to forgive us both.

I. As I hung up the phone my whole world felt still. That first night I sobbed tears into my best friend's lap and told her how much I hated your guts and every lie that came from your mouth. Months later, I choked out sobs into my pillowcase because of how empty my bed felt without you there. II. I went out with my friends and smiled as I threw back the first shot, dedicating it to my freedom and my first party without your eyes following me across the room. Six shots later, I was taking swigs straight out of the bottle trying to forget the way whiskey made your voice sound. III. I still have days where I hear your voice in my head telling me you loved me and I still feel your lips on mine as sweet as the shots we had taken and the sound of your name makes me ache, but they're followed by days where I feel lighter than air and so free and this is how I'm moving on. One day at a time.

The thing that still keeps me up at night thinking over and over and over again just like a merry-go-round is the fact that I stayed and I tried. My feet didn't move an inch as everything and everyone came tumbling into us trying to pull us apart. You looked into my eyes and asked me to stay so I did. I stayed and I tried and I hit the floor more times than I can remember, and life smacked into me at full force puncturing every single inch of me but still I tried. I stayed when everyone told me to run; I stayed when they told me you were no good and I refused to budge when your family admitted I should be long gone. I stayed an I tried until I was black and blue from holding on and I stayed even though it was the hardest thing I had ever had to do, all because you asked. I kept all of my promises and loved you so hard I thought my heart would burst, but the moment I had to ask you to stay, you were miles gone before the words had left my lips.

Although you may not believe me now I learned a lot from the days I spent Falling asleep in plastic chairs staring at chalkboards. When I was eight I learned about emergency rooms And how the too-bright lights flicker off of shiny linoleum floors. I learned there are machines that can carry blood away As my big brother held his teeth in his hand and through bloodied lips And a road-burned face smiled because his glasses were in tact. My mother held us all tighter that night and I learned sometimes luck is shattered teeth instead of a shattered skull When I was sixteen I learned about hospital food As we spent days congregated in the sterile cafeteria waiting. I listened to my beautiful, strong mother cry as my dad cut off her hair So we didn't have to pull it off of the drain and pillow cases. I learned how to be quiet and fetch blankets as my mother slept after Chemo-filled days, and how to make lunch for my little sister. I am still learning how not to flinch every time someone says "cancer" When I was 19 I learned there is no shame in crying on buses As I returned home from buying a dress I could wear to a graveyard. My eyes didn't dry for weeks and as I watched my grandfather weep In front of his entire family as they lowered my grandmother Into the ground. We learned how to hold each other up in her absence As she had once held us all; our sobs replacing her laughter. I still haven't learned how to move on from goodbyes I didn't get to say I learned that despite everything they tell you Sometimes the greatest and heaviest lessons you have to learn Cannot be taught with chalkboards and textbooks, But with love and pain and laughter and tears, And don't stop coming once you have a diploma in your hand