I saw you today and my heart jumped into my throat.
I felt fire creeping up my arteries and threatening to burn straight through the thin skin of my throat and my chest.
I should have tattooed a giant chestpiece there, like Magen’s, because that’s what it felt like,
and then at least I could have said that I had a reason for it to hurt and tighten up.
What do you think? Do you think about it, what happened?
The vindictive side of me, which has never been very strong, wants you to think about it everyday like I did.
She wants you to pain in ways you haven’t before,
to remember what it felt like to hold me against your bare and skinny chest,
to hear my breathing as you slept,
to smell my hair as it crept onto your pillow from my thrashing in my sleep.
She wants you to remember kissing me,
the fire between us, the incredible passion that could have been.
She wants you to feel miserable at the thought that you will never taste my lips again.
You will never again bite my neck and send flames down my spine.
You will never again lock eyes with me and smile at the thought of the future.
You will never again feel my fingers running through your hair,
pulling and tangling and massaging your scalp,
as my breath tickles the small hairs of your neck and your ear,
my silent and kissless way of kissing you.
Then I remember that you thrive on the dramatic, that you would only use this misery as fuel for your grimaces,
as coals to burn behind your beautiful but hard brown eyes,
as firewood to increase your attractiveness to others.
“A man with a monologue can steal your heart,” is what we said last week.
It should have been,
“A man with a sadness can steal your soul,” because that’s what almost happened.
You have a sadness, sometimes.
Not often.
Not everyone sees it, but I imagine more people notice that you think.
You aren’t always happy as you want people to think. You aren’t the clown at all times.
Sometimes you think about sad things,
remember how she lied to you for months and tried to lie to you again.
She is just as bad as you are.
You can’t man up and she can’t tell the truth.
You’re perfect for each other.
When I leaned in close to you, you kissed your fear instead of me.