tori spring

in the absence of everything, i promise to keep you warm. you never swore but i thought you knew it was a promise. you would hold me in the backseats of cars with one arm slung around my shoulders, my cheek pressed into the harsh jut of your bones. you would press my cold hands to your warm chest, brown skin, and there was sweat on your forehead and a gleam in your eyes. later, i would want you to dance with me, but you would just sit with shoulders slumped. you were always too tired for your own good. i’m sorry we never got to dance, though.

you wanted to look for help, i wanted to sit and wait to be rescued. i asked you at your graduation party if i should break up with my boyfriend. you sighed and stared at the sky. the sun was going to set soon in a red burst, and i think you knew that when the sun set, your relationship would set, too. but i didn’t care about your girlfriend, i just wanted to know what you would say. you asked me if i was happy. later, much later, you told me that you never liked how my former boyfriend treats girls. i just didn’t understand why you couldn’t have told me that then, when i was an open wound and you were just a close. i just didn’t understand why you had to tell me that when you were the one kissing me, and there was no girlfriend of yours or no boyfriend of mine. just me and you.

you wrote ‘don’t forget’ on your arm. i wanted to tell you i loved you a million times. i don’t think the words ever left my mouth in a way that wasn’t ironic, though. i wanted to tell you at the creek, when you were scooping up dirt in your calloused hands. i wanted to tell you at my house, when i wrapped my arms around all two layers of your sweater plus t-shirt just to feel your warmth again. i wanted to tell you when you kissed my hairline and held me two years ago, when i was nearly in tears. i have never been drunk, but i have been as high as i can remember, and the whole time i just wanted to tell you i loved you. i never did get to.

learning to hate you as a self defense mechanism. i can tell you over and over again that i didn’t want it to be this way. i sat in the theatre we almost met in and removed you from my instagram, and it wasn’t even that hard, because you didn’t want me on it in the first place. it’s not that you’re a liar, it’s just that you never took the time to find the right stitches for my scars. i cannot walk the neighborhood without seeing you gleaming in the sun, and i cannot walk up to my door when the sun is almost set without feeling your arm on my back. i cannot hate you, but i can resent you, and i can still love you all the same. because sometimes the love that is unspoken is the one that hurts the most.