the first time you told me you loved me was in a tiny hotel room by the river in limerick and i remember your ankles hooked around mine, our bones clanking together under the starch of the sheets. the second time your voice was warm from several pints of guinness and you were playing me fairytale of new york on your old piano that will be forever just a step out of tune. i could only laugh in response because i suddenly forgot how to use the words that i’ve spent years trying to comprehend. the third time you were out on your back patio, smoking a cigarette before heading to bed and the fourth on a freezing night out on a busy street in galway. i know you can hear the hesitation in my voice, the mild fear that shakes at the end of every exhale. you never mention it but you still keep using the words i love you as if you’re attempting to teach me a phrase in a foreign language in the hopes that one day i’ll pick up on what you’ve been trying to say to me all this time.

28 nov, 2012