pictures of him and his brother and sisters hang. remember when you first saw it and how it was so funny that his sister's picture was where his should be and how it was even funnier that his mother didn't understand why it looked wrong? remember how his dad kissed your cheek at the graduation party and how his sister hugged you twice and how he came to your plays and when the two of you sprawled on the lawn and told stories with your eyes while your friends outlined their lives in chalk beside you?
don't bother. by now, he doesn't, so why should you?
for all that you've never been wanted, boys keep doing such romantic things with you. there was that time the one that turned you down in favor for a beauty pageant girlfriend left straight from her competition to take you out to dinner, showed up at your house in a waistcoat and still looking like everything you killed yourself over for a year. how are you supposed to handle him telling you things he admits to never have saying out loud before, all of his embarrassing stories and his hesitations and fears and you sit there picking at fries and feeling guilty when people start to stare? how are you supposed to handle driving to a moonlit apple orchard and leaning against the hood of his car and blowing smoke into the air? you'd like to think you protect yourself by not touching him, but then he looks at you like that and walks you to your door and hugs you like he'll never see you again. how are you supposed to recognize what love might be if what you have to go on is slippery footholds and the whisper of false possibility?
with the heels of your palms pressed deep to your eyes, remember when it didn't hurt to be awake. listless is such an ugly color on you.
'i take it you don't want to see me anymore,' he lets out.
what do you say? what do you say, when he used to be the person you'd tell everything to, and now he's the exact reason you're so quiet?
go on, grow up. grow up and let it go and stop wishing you could pry your ribs open until they splintered. but it's hard, isn't it? it's not like you enjoy lying belly-up and vulnerable, wondering when the floor will snap wide its jaws and swallow you down.
don't bother. by now, he doesn't, so why should you?
for all that you've never been wanted, boys keep doing such romantic things with you. there was that time the one that turned you down in favor for a beauty pageant girlfriend left straight from her competition to take you out to dinner, showed up at your house in a waistcoat and still looking like everything you killed yourself over for a year. how are you supposed to handle him telling you things he admits to never have saying out loud before, all of his embarrassing stories and his hesitations and fears and you sit there picking at fries and feeling guilty when people start to stare? how are you supposed to handle driving to a moonlit apple orchard and leaning against the hood of his car and blowing smoke into the air? you'd like to think you protect yourself by not touching him, but then he looks at you like that and walks you to your door and hugs you like he'll never see you again. how are you supposed to recognize what love might be if what you have to go on is slippery footholds and the whisper of false possibility?
with the heels of your palms pressed deep to your eyes, remember when it didn't hurt to be awake. listless is such an ugly color on you.
'i take it you don't want to see me anymore,' he lets out.
what do you say? what do you say, when he used to be the person you'd tell everything to, and now he's the exact reason you're so quiet?
go on, grow up. grow up and let it go and stop wishing you could pry your ribs open until they splintered. but it's hard, isn't it? it's not like you enjoy lying belly-up and vulnerable, wondering when the floor will snap wide its jaws and swallow you down.
