yesnothankyou

I used to write this stuff about you where you could see it and I don’t think it was brave, I think it was selfish. I think it was like having a conversation about us that I let you observe but wouldn’t let you be a part of. I culled all the proof and I was so surprised when I still couldn’t tell what was real. You’d try to show me and I didn’t know how to believe you. You said I was always out of reach. You called me evasive. I was so mad at you for it. And then that night at Vincent’s when he asked if you were in love with me and I laughed in his face. I shot back my beer so I wouldn’t have to answer it. What a fucked up question with a bunch of fucked up answers. People are so many things, Vince. Only if love is like getting kicked in the teeth and coming back for more, Vince. What you’re seeing is a series of compromises, Vince.

Those wildflowers on your shoulders the next morning. The way I lined them up and you sat patient in the yard for me. I wanted to tell you how nobody gets it just to hear you say that you did, but I couldn't because I was one of the people who didn't get it anymore. I used to, of course. I was the one who started all of it. When I ignored you, when I danced with my friends and left without you, when you called me after and you asked what I wanted from you. So I said please let it just be this, please don’t let us ruin it. You didn’t talk to me for a week. I thought that was it. But then you showed up, the way you always did. You gave in, said you couldn’t imagine walking away from this, whatever this is. There's a cost for that, though.

There are so many iterations of this and I still don't know which was the closest to what we wanted it to be.

Let me do it different, let me go back further. We're falling asleep and we're separated by endless back roads and starless highways. Don't hang up yet, something is ascending but I don't think it's the sun. What did you call it? little butterfly wing, petal of flame. It felt good and it felt terrible. rings around a planet, all that aftermath, things like that. You always listened right. You were mostly a better friend than me. You took me to the ocean and you took me to the boulevard and you took me to the mountain and I hid in the car when it rained. You leaned your head against my back, I wonder if you remember that. why do I remember that? You said I didn't know how to hear you and you were right, it just broke my heart. That part wasn't your fault. But then it's us sitting on the curb and we're fighting, you're talking about me being evasive again. I wanted to argue and you wouldn't let me. whatever, let's go look for cliffs, let's go park on a soft shoulder of the road and watch the day lose itself. Another summer and it's sweltering. We open all the windows in your place, we find other bodies of water to rearrange the hours in. It felt easy, it felt fine, it got confused. We sit on that hill where the dragonflies part through the fields like a glittering wave and you're trying to catch my anything. You reverberated through me and I always let you. People used to like me for that kind of thing but I don't think they knew what they were getting into, how I could just configure myself into what they wanted to see if I felt like it. It's hard giving up the things that kept you safe once.

Remember when we stopped sleeping and it became like a crack in time? like we could move through it diagonally. So we did. Another small avalanche of awe. I wanted you to tell me you saw it too which was unkind. It was so heavy, don't you understand? It shouldn't have been easy to walk away but it was. I was never going to do it better than that.

I don't want to pretend I'm mad anymore.