Afterthought

I have always been in love with your language.
A man’s intelligence will leave me weak
I feel your whisper against the span of my skin
Rescinding my every inhibition
My musings look like kindergarten finger-paints when compared
To your Matisse-like keystrokes
Every word imprinted on the page
With no apology; no regret
I always imagine you asserting how it doesn’t matter
Spilling into a dramatic rant
My insecurity both a disappointment and an opportunity
I could stay and watch your body fill the distance between us
Though your voice carries me
And I feel you
But I was never there
You were never there
We were never there

December.

Gasping.

Grasping.

Those sheets pressed between my white knuckles.
They don’t breathe. I can’t breathe. You won’t breathe.

You can still see the imprints of my scratches. Hours later. Days. Weeks even.

Primal sounds unrecognizable to even me. It reverberates in this darkness. I feel it in the air. I am left stunned. I don’t take the time to try and comprehend it.

My face flushes with just the thought of it. Of you.

12 hours later.
And there it is. conflicted.

Those sheets remember.

I wouldn't want to love me either.

You are so difficult to love.

(That isn't what he meant, but those are the exact words he said.)
And it stuck.

It stuck in the back of my mind each and every time he said he loved me.
Hell, it stuck in the back of my mind each and every time any man said he loved me.
(of there were many)

I wouldn't want to love me either.

I am stubborn. Insecure. Complicated.

Need I go on?
Broken.
That's the word.

I'm broken.

My head and my heart wage wars against each other. I never let either of them win. It wouldn't be fair. So I watch the battle, hoping someday one will come out on top and end the war. Someday I will sleep through the night without remembering one of a hundred scenarios I could have done differently in my life. Someday. But I pull the rug out from under both of them, and then I cry when it doesn't go my way. Sometimes I even stop to remind myself that I never placed a bet on either one, so what does it really matter if I didn't win? And none of it makes sense. Not one bit. The war? It doesn't even exist.

I wouldn't want to love me either.
I fall. I falter. I fail.

And it does no good. I still remember the look on his face when he said it. I knew what he meant but I made damn well sure he knew that the words were all that mattered. And he did. And I don't know if he ever forgave me.

That's not what I meant.... You are easy to love, just difficult to be with.

I don't care. It's too late to change me with your language. I read that line somewhere. In some book, off some bookshelf. Or perhaps in a tattered copy of something I loved which I kept in my back pocket. It's too late to change me with your language. You are difficult to love. It means I wouldn't want to love you. And sometimes I wouldn't.

Settling.

I don't even know where to begin.
My heart torn between its own idealistic tendencies reminds me that I've felt this way too many times to count.
I've been on either side of this coin.
Watching it spin, precariously, my heart pounding with each revolution
And as the gravity around it seems to shift, it falls.

Tails.

What does that even mean??

I lost?

He looks at me. I can't read him. I'm not used to that.
It drives me mad on the best of days.
I want to know what he is thinking.
I don't ask.
Perhaps, I only think I want to know what he's thinking.

I want him to look at me. Not through me. Not around me. I want him to want to tell me every secret he dare not admit to even himself.

Of course, that fantasy has long past died.
I feel like he's settling.

I hate it.

Settle somewhere else.

I want him to know. Just to know when he looks into my eyes that no one will ever love him the way I will, if given the chance.

I'm not ready for it.

But then again, I have always refused to settle.

In the meantime, I feel that shift in gravity, and the precariously ever revolving coin, prior to its reluctant surrender.

A

I can’t even look at you sometimes.

The guilt seeping off my body.

Betrayal of my instincts.

You hold me close and the universe melts away.

I feel safe. Protected.

When you kiss me I am lost in that space where we share breath.

It’s unreal.

I feel like you could take my life with just one kiss. One touch.

This can’t happen and we both know it.

I fight so hard to keep a wall up

But you penetrate it with every look

I don’t know what you are thinking

What you are feeling

This situation is unrealistic.

The games we play, destructive.

You ask if I want you to stop

You already know the answer

Betrayal of my instincts

The guilt seeping off my body

And I can only look at you. Sometimes.

(unfinished, work in progress)

I went back to that place
where you wrapped your arms around me
and we saw our futures
in the murky depths of the duck pond
before your broken promises
before the lies
the alienation
before you retreated
and i visibly became a shell
of the girl i once was
as I swim in those broken promises
where I cannot see nor touch bottom
i regret nothing
for i am here
and you are not
and for that i couldn't be more thankful
my fortune catches in the wind
it swirls amidst the atmosphere until it dissipates
in that same place
where you pressed your lips into mine
with silent promises
in that space between time

.

I'm too late.
I can't change this path we've wandered,
nor can ignore where we are.
And I wouldn't want to.
The language as it slides past my lips and hits the floor like concrete
leaves little more than a bitter taste on the tip of my tongue.
but I don't regret it.
Regrets are useless,
they remind me of paths I would have traveled,
lives I could have had
things I shouldn't have said
but then what?
Exactly.
Useless.
This extravagant road we took to get here
only made us later.
Your regret clinging to my heels
It slowly creeps up my leg
Waiting for me to stumble.
I stare directly as I fall

Like I said.
I'm too late.