I know we fight
(a lot)
I call you
horrible things that I rarely mean
and you take them
in, your thick skin
repels them
(except when it doesn't)
(because sometimes it doesn’t, I'm sure)

and yes
you hurt me too
sometimes without even trying
I envy
how easily some things come to you
things I can't seem to grasp
I feel inferior
and sometimes you try
and you taunt and jeer and jab
and unlike you
my skin is thin and
penetrable

but
I'm writing this
because you're the only one I have
I realized that
at dinner
last night
when the tension in the air
made my lip curl
like it reeked
and I felt hatred
prickling my skin
leeching out like steam

so
when the day comes
and our world has fallen around us
(hasn't it already?)
the only one
I will reach for
to pull to the surface
with me
through the crumbling
fragments
of false stability
and weak promises
to gasp
for a breath of
that weightless type of air
I ache to someday reach
is you