Dating : Here We Feast On The Future

We eat pickles from the jar with our fingers

and exchange briney promises.

A midnight feast –

crumpled bags of peach rings.

Fizzy, sugary coating like furry skin.

Fake fruit —

Sticky, sickly, sweet.

You laugh at something, or nothing

and I ignore how our love has started to stain the wall behind us

in invisible ink.

This is not our mess to deal with yet.

…

It is a Thursday and you are trying to make me listen.

I’m not sure why this seems so impossible, but it’s one of those days.

We’ve shared hundreds of ones like this. But they always seem to take us by surprise.

They are empty and absent

and it feels like we will be punished for wasting time.

I am not sure what I am so afraid of.

Clothes itch and bunch in all the wrong places.

I claw at the wallpaper, slowly and gently,

as that calm panic grows. Quietly.

I bury my nails into my skin,

holding my breath. Counting.

My brain pounds in my ears, wanting attention.

And the blood keeps thumping thumping

thumping.

Are you listening?

My body floats.

Your voice is warped and seems worlds away.

It is both too hot and too cold and the Bad Feeling tells me it plans on staying

for good.

Tomorrow? I ask. I’ll listen tomorrow.

I’m trying to sound reassuring, but I have the habit of making things sound colder than intended.

I do not ask how your day has been.

Or I do, another time,

over and over until you give me an answer I can work with.

A word or phrase I can chew on, and hide beneath my tongue

until it dissolves.

…

Those were the days when music felt too loud for my ears.

When the I love you’s and the just listen, why won’t you listen?

it’ll only take a minute,

a second —

were all too much.

Affection seemed demanding and confrontational.

Words were cloying and clumped in my throat,

All cinnamon clouds,

choking,

smoke escaping.

…

There too, were days when silence was equally infuriating,

maddening.

And you were the one floating,

Lost boy.

Floating and sinking and hoping and clinging

to an anchor.

To me.

…

My companion.

Sweet, sweet friend.

Sometimes I wish we’d had more time –

Or less.

I wish I could be this version of me

without having been her –

that cruel, impulsive, selfish, reckless

girl

who’d do anything just to feel more alive.

Remember,

how we loved playing grown-ups?

And playing games,

until no one was winning anymore,

and something had to end.

Well I don’t think we lost,

or failed,

anymore.

…

That freedom we craved,

I found it.

It’s here, and the world is so much lighter.

There is room to breathe,

and space to meet myself

over and over again.

To start again.

I know you would like to hear that it was worthwhile,

so here is the truth.

I am giddy with choice,

drunk on possibilities,

and cradling clichés like my life depends on it.

My life depends on it.

Here is another truth:

That this,

the weight of us –

All we had, and what we were.

Our ridiculous, childish, brilliant thing.

It happened.

And it’s here, too.

We’ve got it.

I’ve got you.

I’m still here.