What I Wanted To Say To You But Never Could

I hate when you can’t look at me, it’s more unnerving. Just look at me for once. Actually see me, for what I’ve meant to you for the last 2 years. And really tell me what I am to you because I can see it in your eyes, lingering on your tongue and perched on your lips. I am dying to hear the words, I’m thirsty for those few syllables, those beautifully sculpted vowels that pour so easily out of your mouth when you talk about other things. Your gazes are like honey dripping from your eyes and you think I’m not looking but I see it all. I am addicted to all of it so tell me I’m going to be a problem, that I’m unchartered territory, something you’re unaccustomed to

And don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it because I know you’ve been creating swirls in your head but just know I’m not a celestial figure, down from whatever heaven you think I’m from to save you from yourself. I can’t, I won’t put that burden on myself so you can forget it. But tell me like I’m like water to your fire. The fluidity to your flame, the beauty to your beast.

I’m not someone you meet casually at a bar, or school or work. I’m not someone you get introduced to by your friends or friends’ friend. You can’t predict the way I’m going to be even though your brain wants to so bad, so tell me I’m unpredictable and tell me you have no idea or clue what a typical day with us would be like because it probably wouldn’t be typical. It wouldn’t be anything you could easily decipher afterward either and tell me that you’ve thought about the next 6 months and that seems like a blur too.

We fucked like we knew we would be a problem for each other. That this wasn’t some run of the mill relationship. Oops, I’m sorry, I accidently labelled us exactly what we’ve been for each other for the past year and a half, so just tell me like it was and we can move on. We’re apart not because you don’t love me or are suddenly in a different place but because you miss the place I plucked you out from. You loved your routines, you placed them on such a pedestal. They saved you from yourself, you said. They gave you the sanity you needed to get through the day, so I quickly fit into those moments. Every single day like clock work you picked me up and I held you down.

So you’re with someone else now, how convenient isn’t it? Tell me it’s convenient. You have the comfort of a girl that doesn’t mind it missionary because she has to get up early the next morning. You told me in our last meeting that you didn’t really like that she lived so far or that you couldn’t see her when you wanted. Your gaze directed your beautiful eyes downward and told me that you were always happy when you did eventually see her, is it wrong of me to know you’re lying? Because you are. No one should need convincing. We lived over 6 hours apart and it felt like you were beside me every night.

Let me guess, you guys eat dinner at 8 so you can get through your caesar salads and fish tacos and talk about the weather? It’s beautiful out, please tell me again why that’s important to know? So this was the type of conversation and routine you told me about 3 and a half months ago? Is this what seemed so right when we were just so wrong?

Can I guess again? Can I tell you that you probably make out with her for 10 minutes or just until your lips get tired and then you drop her home. How sweet, she might even turn around just to see you pull away from the curb. Does she know you struggle to pull away every fucking night you see her?

You rush home just in time to masturbate and fall asleep. Don’t forget to clean up and set the alarm for the next day. Rinse, lather and repeat.

I’m sorry if I’m too scary and that I’m not the best hostess when you used to come over and I don’t have a couch or a bench you can sit on to do up your laces before you left.
My ceiling is cracked and so is my sense of humour. You tell me I’m incredibly uncool and I always loved that your grin would totally tell me otherwise. Oh God that smile.
I’m getting kind of hazy, this wine was strong. I can’t really explain all of my thoughts in just 2 hours, so I’m going to need the night. But please I’m going to need you to strip down, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and with me, I know it hurts sometimes. Unbutton those scars, take your socks off and sip that drink slow, it’s going to be a long one.

I don’t really talk about what I need much because it’s hard for me to be so upfront with you. I’m okay with everyone else, but I find myself shrinking down because I am so scared you’ll just leave if I finally muster up the courage to tell you. So I’m going to tell you. I need you to be real and not in the sense that you talk a lot about things that add up to nothing. I need you to subtract your ego from my bed, I don’t want to have to wash the sheets again. I want you to lie your tired and full head on my pillow and look into my eyes, touch my eyelashes if you think I’m not here with you and let me touch your chest to know that all is not lost, that your heart hasn’t been replaced by tin cans and super glue

I want to know everything about you. I want to know what makes it beat, why your mom feels uncomfortable in large crowds and where’s your father? Why hasn’t he taught you anything about queens with invisible crowns? Do you know that we are one in a million?

I need you to put your hand around my neck lightly and feel my shoulders strong and tall. I can’t save you and I know your voice cracks as it tries to muster the courage to be over me. You are curious about every crevice of my life because you want to know if you still hold a place in it. You always had a habit of speaking quickly and loudly but the things I caught were whispered and conveniently placed at the end of your sentences, Those were my favorites. The hidden pieces of your heart where you thought I couldn’t get to, where you thought you had left behind.

I want you to think of me when I think of you. When you leave tonight, when the daze of me and you and us clears and you go back to your mundane routines and regular life. I won’t beg you to stay or even ask you what went wrong because I know it doesn’t matter anymore.

I’m the medicine but still you choose to stay sick. You choose ignorance over bliss every single time you answer her calls and text the two Jessica’s you keep around for good measure. You love good over extraordinary because it’s easier to swallow. Mediocrity trumps over the moon because you think aiming high ensures you land on the concrete, broken and bleeding, so you get high to feel it anyway.

I’m going to leave you now but just know that we weren’t a movie, a scene acted out from a tragic play. We were the real thing, the behind the scenes and the highlight reel. The broken pieces on the cutting room floor and everything in between.

So as you drive away, crossing amber lights and your mind doing 180, know that I am everything, we could’ve been and you’re everything but.