wait, he asks, wait for when i’m ready, when i’m whole, when i’m--
worth it? not that, i think, i think he means, not scared.
of this, of us, of closing the distance, jumping across
the gaping void that exists, evident only in awkward silence, hesitant hands.
it wasn’t good of me, he continues, to not communicate with you when you were pining
pining? the word conjures images of helpless heroines, cheap paperback romance,
of women who don’t say what they want, but believe hope will anchor the impossible.
i wasn’t pining, that wasn’t it, i was, and the irony is, i think i was,
really i was waiting for him. perhaps so he, or i, could realise that ‘wait’ really meant ‘no’
no, like, as he says, ‘this isn’t working’, ‘i’m not ready’
and it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, or perhaps it would be if he’d told me from the start
that all he wanted was comfortable silence and not a hand to hold.
i’d wanted both and had thought one followed the other.
and i did, i waited until i realised that i was waiting - when he asked,
under the jacaranda tree and then again over text, for me to pause my life, and commit
when he couldn’t. do what he deemed impossible. miraculous!
what he wants is a toy that he can play with when he wants,
someone to need him when he wants to be needed, and not to need, in return.
