share yourself with me. we could be one.
your mouth moves like a shadow, and i try to follow. you are there in the morning with two cups of coffee in your hands, you are there sitting across from me at a table at lunch. you are putting in a different cd in the stereo in your car, washing the dishes in your sink, using your phone, sitting beside me on your couch, laughing between scenes, leaving notes beneath my door mat. you are everywhere, my love inexpressible, i wonder how long it will go on this way. you and i like best friends, like brother and sister, like two people who spend their day together and go home to try and dream about other faces at night.
i have been too sick to feel unhappy. for days my face has been the color of murky water, my hands unsteady, my chest burning like a torch each time i even consider moving quickly. physical sickness seems to mute emotional uncertainty. i rise anesthetically each morning with the intention only of making it through the day until i can collapse into bed again. making it through without faltering in step or getting out of breath or clutching ineffectively at my chest where my heart rages against its unyielding cage. this will destroy me first, the acquiescence of my fist-sized organ. i will not be claimed by prescription drugs or self-inflicted wounds, however i may try. i will die on a gurney with machines attached to my body, with defibrillating paddles making a futile effort, with tubes in my throat.
i am not giving into effort nor to reason. i do not sustain for the sake of someone else. i will continue because that's what you are supposed to do, isn't it? i will endure because there is something nameless inside of me that refuses to withdraw, an anchor that will not be raised. i will persist until medical technology fails me, i will learn how to love another wholly because it is the only thing in this world even remotely worth fighting for.
i feel strangled by your presence, my stomach turns over and over at even the idea of touching you. i have grown familiar with this empty feeling. i have kept the curtains drawn, stayed in bed with a glass of water, but i cannot refuse your fist that knocks on my door. we lay side by side, shoulder to shoulder, wrists crossed, palm to palm. your finger runs along the inside of my arm, the ugliest thing i could ever think of showing you. i am terrified to be near you, terrified that i will end up falling in love all over again with the scar beneath your eyebrow or the curves of your shoulders or the way you say that I say "sorry" as though I'm from canada. when you leave, I stand on my toes to give you a kiss and you bow your head until your lips press against my temple. i am paralyzed with the possibility of our mouths colliding. "don't be a stranger," you say, float down the stairs like a ghost come back to haunt me.
but i would give anything to look at you without recognition, to pass you on the sidewalk and not feel a thing. i am in love with you, without intention; cursing love every night, wishing it would die its miserable death so i could spend a night without dreaming of your hands, the ring on your finger, your favorite pair of shoes. please don't do this to me again. i will let you down a thousand times more, i will make you cry, i will make you worry, i will keep you up at night, i will drain you, i will be insufficient, i will not give you everything you deserve, i will be a scar on your heart that will not heal. i want so badly to forget your name, your face, your taste. i want to move a thousand miles away until correspondence wears thin and we forget each other's addresses, i want to be a memory that comes up from time to time as you are staring out the window on cold winter days. please don't do this to me again, you can't do this to me. i'm still hurt and i'm just not ready yet.
i have been too sick to feel unhappy. for days my face has been the color of murky water, my hands unsteady, my chest burning like a torch each time i even consider moving quickly. physical sickness seems to mute emotional uncertainty. i rise anesthetically each morning with the intention only of making it through the day until i can collapse into bed again. making it through without faltering in step or getting out of breath or clutching ineffectively at my chest where my heart rages against its unyielding cage. this will destroy me first, the acquiescence of my fist-sized organ. i will not be claimed by prescription drugs or self-inflicted wounds, however i may try. i will die on a gurney with machines attached to my body, with defibrillating paddles making a futile effort, with tubes in my throat.
i am not giving into effort nor to reason. i do not sustain for the sake of someone else. i will continue because that's what you are supposed to do, isn't it? i will endure because there is something nameless inside of me that refuses to withdraw, an anchor that will not be raised. i will persist until medical technology fails me, i will learn how to love another wholly because it is the only thing in this world even remotely worth fighting for.
i feel strangled by your presence, my stomach turns over and over at even the idea of touching you. i have grown familiar with this empty feeling. i have kept the curtains drawn, stayed in bed with a glass of water, but i cannot refuse your fist that knocks on my door. we lay side by side, shoulder to shoulder, wrists crossed, palm to palm. your finger runs along the inside of my arm, the ugliest thing i could ever think of showing you. i am terrified to be near you, terrified that i will end up falling in love all over again with the scar beneath your eyebrow or the curves of your shoulders or the way you say that I say "sorry" as though I'm from canada. when you leave, I stand on my toes to give you a kiss and you bow your head until your lips press against my temple. i am paralyzed with the possibility of our mouths colliding. "don't be a stranger," you say, float down the stairs like a ghost come back to haunt me.
but i would give anything to look at you without recognition, to pass you on the sidewalk and not feel a thing. i am in love with you, without intention; cursing love every night, wishing it would die its miserable death so i could spend a night without dreaming of your hands, the ring on your finger, your favorite pair of shoes. please don't do this to me again. i will let you down a thousand times more, i will make you cry, i will make you worry, i will keep you up at night, i will drain you, i will be insufficient, i will not give you everything you deserve, i will be a scar on your heart that will not heal. i want so badly to forget your name, your face, your taste. i want to move a thousand miles away until correspondence wears thin and we forget each other's addresses, i want to be a memory that comes up from time to time as you are staring out the window on cold winter days. please don't do this to me again, you can't do this to me. i'm still hurt and i'm just not ready yet.