I can’t remember
exactly what we had been fighting about.
All I know is this was the moment I started to ask myself
why I had fallen in love with you,
or even if.

I think I was complaining about algorithms
and how I didn’t understand them
and how math must have been invented by sadists.
You looked over my shoulder
and laughed at me.
That’s college math? That’s so easy. You must be *******.
Ok, that’s not exactly what you said
but that’s what I heard.
So I shot back with an
If it’s so easy how come you’re not doing it?

An hour later,
after egos and knuckles were bruised
upon the basement walls
and things were said that were meant
but not to be heard aloud
and we both had time to calm down.
I came back down stairs
and heard you sobbing in our bathroom.
I opened the door to see you
naked and shamed -
razor blade in hand
and your left leg
leaked thick and red
hiding the pattern of
horizontal slices
what would become ugly set of scars.

I felt many things in that moment:
pity, anger, guilt, and confusion.
Mostly I was just asking myself
why I had fallen in love with someone so clearly wounded -
and I hated how repulsed
I was by you that night.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how selfish you were.
How you clearly overreacted -
and how there was no way I’d win this argument.

Under the mask of the comforting boyfriend,
I sat beside you in silence.
I held your hand.
There was an itch in my throat
from uncomfortable words.
I swallowed them
and kept rubbing your back,
Instead I lied:
I told you we would be fine
that this didn’t change everything

that I didn’t hate you now.