This Is What I Wanted To Tell You

We are on your rooftop and you are looking at me with a pair of brown eyes that twist bullets through my flesh. A look that makes my organs rattle against each other with an amplitude of intensity. You ask me what I expect out of this, and I pretend that I don’t know what this is. I pretend that the idea of this had never crossed my mind, when this really is all that I had thought about since the moment I met you. You say I’m a nice girl who is too good to be caught up in your mistakes; that my heart is too pure compared to the one that beats in your strong chest. I lie to myself and say that is a bullshit excuse. I let every sip of whiskey build false bravery within me. I let the poison permeate my existence, and I decide that I’m bold enough to kiss you in front of your best friend.

I feel your smile in the way that you kiss me back, and I soar high against the city lights. I let your lips stain me like spilled wine on a crisp white carpet, and I drink you up as if you are the only antidote. We bask in this half-drunken moment with flushed cheeks and listen to The Smiths softly sing in the distant. You say we should head back downstairs to your room, but I shake my head and sway my hips with open palms to the sky.

I tell you that I need to gather all of my ammunition from the night air, because I am not ready to give you the layers that are under my jumper. I’m not ready to let you explore my cluttered head that feels like a sunken empire. I’m not ready to crack open the shutters to my mosaic heart that constantly seeks validation from things that are out of my control. I’m not ready to let my secrets spill out like a tsunami wave and let them wash over your bedroom floor. I’m not ready to let you judge me for the flaws in my vocabulary, or let you learn about the names that I have buried within my ribs.

But most of all, I am not ready to let you disappoint me. I’m not ready to hear about the girls who have seen the tattoo on your back and have traced the lines with their subtle touch. I’m not ready to be measured against your past or let you calculate my value for your future. I’m not ready to let you tear me apart, because we both know that you have the launch code to set weapons off in my head. I had only recently learnt how to stitch my own heart back together, and I’m not ready to be let my insides become hollow again. I am not ready because I know how destructible I am, while you seem to effortlessly brush off failure as if you are bulletproof.

I think about saying all of this to you when your hands find my waist under twisted sheets. I think about telling you that I’m absolutely terrified of everything that will happen from this moment onwards. Instead, I orbit in my own nervousness and kiss your collarbones with my best stories. I tell myself that every moment from this point on will be compared to the words that I gift to you tonight. I choose each one of them ever so carefully, and hope that they will be enough to keep you from finding the next pretty face to take home.