I bet you don’t know I write poetry.
I’m speaking into the phone and the line goes silent.
Of course I don’t, he says.
It’s part of that whole thing where you let me in and shut me out, he says.
This time the line is silent, this time because of me.
Oh, I say.
A few months before, I got asked if I’d ever been in love, and before I could answer someone else answered yes for me.
My answer is no.
Not romantically, no.
I met you, but I didn’t really meet you. You’ve always been shy, painfully so. But one day on the count of three, I sat down, just you and me. Hi, I said. That was all it took. We just worked. I’ve never been so intrigued we had our own language you see. Like any good relationship, platonic or romantic, you have to click. It’s a vibe, it just happens. Or so I think.
The first time I shut you out, you didn’t go without a fight.
When I reached out again, you were annoyed, you asked me what I was doing. I told you I didn’t know. I told you I was confused, because I am.
You told me you were just getting over what it felt like to be sucker-punched, that I was rubbing salt in a wound, that I needed to let you be.
You reached out the next time, and after that again, and again, and again.
We did this dance once or twice until finally.
I let you be, I did.
I drafted a million things to say after that.
They all went unsent.
I tossed and turned, and I always went to bed saying the same thing.
You’ll text in the morning. You’ll text in the morning. You’ll text…
365 days later and I never texted in the morning.
In the space of years I’m still here.
You’re like this little voice in the back of my head that always asks why I let you go. If I couldn’t stop thinking about you, if losing you from my life felt like losing a piece of me. If when I was around you I was glowing infinitely. Why?
I could tell you a million ways why this idea of “something” scared me.
I could tell you how disassembling the four walls I’ve built around myself is not an easy task. How titanium is nearly indestructible, how it’s not as easy said as done.
I could tell you that letting myself feel, means that I’m going to let myself get hurt.
You know I’ve been told I’m quite in touch with my emotions and I think this might just be a testament to that.
So yeah, I’m really scared what will happen when I stop tuning it all out.
How do you let someone in who doesn’t know they’re trying to enter a minefield?
Maybe what I’m doing is self-sabotage, but at least it’s not triage.
Because you’re patient zero.
See I don’t believe there is this whole big problem or whatnot with me. It’s simply because there really isn’t. I fear I’m sensible and driven and I can tell myself almost any good reason why this wouldn’t make sense. Yet, maybe there is a problem with me because there is no “this”.
I’m making excuses and issues with something that doesn’t even exist.
It’s just the idea of you.
Except I fear I really do know you.
Maybe it’s the idea of me,
with you.
I like her.
That girl.
I like her because there’s something about her that glows. She looks so happy, she looks like she’s breezing through life, like not only does she know how beautiful the world is, but she’s making it more beautiful by simply existing.
I want to be her.
She looks so confident, she looks so radiant.
Except maybe it’s a facade, maybe her life isn’t perfect at all, maybe I need to stop saying maybe.
One time I got asked if I’ve ever been in love.
This time you were asking me.
It was right after I said oh, and a bunch of silenced followed.
You blurted out the words like they were poison on your tongue.
I think you wanted me to say yes, I was in love with you, that’s why I was doing this.
No, I said.
I’ve never been in love.
You asked me why.
I write poetry I said.
I’ve never not been in love, but I’ve never been in love with just any one thing.
