So, we sat on the bench near the place where
we first walked and talked.
And it was cold.
We had kissed in the dark
and my heart bounded three miles downward
and kicked itself back into place beneath my ribs.
Yeah,
no one saw a thing.
We were an invisible couple that could never be together.
And we walked away from the red seats
stealthily and quietly and solemnly
and nervously, too.
He told me he was broken, so I told him
“I’m broken, too.
And I miss you.”
He made it unclear if he missed me back.
But I assumed so.
I forgot where our conversation led,
but eventually he was hanging off my lips
and shaking so violently.
It was the first time I’ve seen him cry, and the first time
I couldn’t love him innocently.
It was all I could do to hold him with my weak arms
and to stroke his head with my weak fingers
and sing into his ears with my weak voice.
I was afraid of him,
and I was afraid of myself.
They say things fall apart before they get better,
but I’m afraid, in this case,
they never did.
I lost the glue bottle, and he hid the staple gun,
and the only tools left in our tool boxes were knives.
So, we used them to tear each other part.
No one taught us otherwise.
And he convinced me it was okay to break into a million pieces.
The night when he cried, I broke.
I just pretended to be strong,
like I always do.