I don’t want to see you again because I already know what you will say to me.
You will tell me that I scare you
That I am unstable
That I am too angry all the time
That I am unhealthy and need to get well
You will also tell me other things
That I do want to hear though,
But those are the things that will make me cry more
Only proving your point that I am not well
And you will make me look like a fool as I cry when you tell me
how you love me
you miss me
And how beautiful I am
But as you tell me what I want to hear
I will hear another voice
A voice that tells me that your words spread as smoothly and as thin as butter
On warm white bread
so easily
that they must be lies
Because,
even truth
could never be spread so thin.
They cannot be words meant for me.
I will tell myself when I hear the ease in your voice which proves practice.
Why do I care how often you speak like this, I will wonder.
How many women have you spoken to like this?
Does it matter?
In turn I will tell myself that I’m undeserving of these words
Because they are recycled and were never mine to begin with
Despite how deeply I want them inside of me
to have them attach to the walls of my being
building into my double helix
Becoming part of me, absorbing into my body.
And while I know you’ve spoken to others like this
I will savor it like candy and let it drip through my ears, down through my spine, pooling into my belly
And I will imagine one day again how I hope to have my fill of you
But still I will reject these thoughts because they cannot be true
Because your soul is so easily visible when we are together and so evaporating when we are not
I am left grasping at what was before me
Remembering moments of when our bodies fit together
Your hands finding my hands in the middle of the night
making them feel smaller than they ever have before.
A large handed woman.
Making me feel like I am a woman who’s grown into something more.
I will hear your words as I am on top of you.
I love you, you will say
And I will tell you that I am in love with you too
And I will start to cry then too.
As you are the only man in well over 10 years who has said those words to me and meant them.
I think back to you
Holding my hand like we are lovers in school.
Holding my hand like we would
sitting in church pews attending a funeral.
I think of you
Waking me from slumber
your kisses on my forehead
searching for my body underneath bed covers
And while you can not see it
I will hold back tears then too
Because while you are holding me and I am next to you
I believe in all of this and I believe in us
But when you are away I do not believe in anything but our own lust
So I throw most of it away because
I know that I am neurotic and I know what magic you contain
So I am stuck now looking forward to ending something before it brings more pain
Or ending something before it ends anyway.
Despite how deeply my heart aches, I am tired of being so sorry and so sorry for being so much of me.
I am forever sorry that I’ve let you see the worst of me.
I am forever sorry that I can never figure out how to give you the best of me.
My heart wants to give to you endlessly. My mind wants to keep you trapped in joyful bliss of thoughts and knowledgeable flips.
My reality is that of stuttering and spit and tears that come despite what maps we make.
I just wish that there was some way to ever make this work.
