I know that I should have told you. But at this point, I also know that it’s too late. Half empty glasses stuck to vinyl countertops, my cheek against faux wood tables in dim diners, hot Michigan summers in no-where land. I close my eyes and I breathe. Bring winter, please. Bring winter before I’ve peeled myself away.
Broken hearts and broken bones hurt just the same. The force on impact would have been beautiful—a split lip, a torn heart. We have all walked this way so many times that it becomes an unbalanced cadence, the song you turn down on the radio because it’s always made you impossibly sad. The familiar ways feel tired, paths worn winding on the inside of my wrist and the road leading from your driveway. You come inside and shake the dirt from your shoes and turn the shower on steaming. You get in and you cry.
Lids are drawn against the night like shuttered windows but even light turns dark. It’s not your responsibility, the fault was all in the design, not the execution—we are meant to hurt one another, it’s why we breathe like we’re breaking. And have you wondered? You won’t ever be good enough. You weren’t made to be.
We’re all sharp edges and jutting hip bones, meant to hurt and not to fit. You won’t be enough until they say you are, and by then it will be too late to matter, just like everything else. And it’s sick, the way I skim around the beating vibrancy of your heart, trying to explain; no, it’s not right that you feel like nothing until they say you are something, but I’ve only ever seen myself through someone else’s eyes. The lies stick to my tongue. I’ve only ever needed me.
It’s quiet now, because silence is what happens when you don’t let people in too close. Until you come near and you say, We dig our own graves. And I say, I know, I know. You taught me how.