Feb 2020
It’s Valentine’s Day. I want to tell you I love you (maybe). I want to tell you that a minute with you is a thousand years: made for savoring and inhaling but impossible to walk away from without pain. I want to apologize for every single time I walked away... that was dishonest of me.
Today I tell the truth. Today, I woke up to the anvil on my chest again.
Usually, the first thing I do in the morning is try to give it a better name. A name less clichéd. It’s been an asteroid, a vacuum, a gravity; I promise they aren’t all space related. Today, I just called it an anvil. I didn’t push it off, I never do. I laid there awake with my cracking ribs until I absorbed the whole of it. I told myself that I am invincible with all that inside me and if I survive this again tomorrow, maybe it’s true. You’d be proud of me. When I imagine my legs giving out under the pressure of the atmosphere, I always imagine you beside me, suddenly, holding me up. It doesn’t make sense but I never said it would.
After I absorbed the anvil I spent my whole day spitting iron at my reflection any time I caught it in a mirror,
or puddle,
or window.
By some surprise, it never shattered. Never has before I suppose. Every time I looked, I hoped this time I’d see someone brave enough to hold you. Someone good enough that you’d let them. But I spit the wishes out too.
There are maybe 1000 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. I try to shake it away, promise myself that my mind is no different than a polaroid, and this time I’ll shake till it develops into something less painful.
There are maybe 1001 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. I just thought of how you might react if I read this to you. It makes me want to erase the whole **** thing. Today I deleted no less than 4 **** things. Some of them were more sure that I loved you. Now I’m just sure that I think I love you and that potential energy is deadly
I found myself thinking about someone else recently. It’s the first time in a long time. I felt like a valve was opened in my soul and all the pressure could come out. And with my hand over my heart, I closed it right back up. Because that pressure, it turns out to be the only holding me together.
Tonight I hung my coat up on a star and dropped my keys into the dark side of the moon. I won’t need either anymore. Tonight, like every night, I smile at darkness and make a promise. “Keep the coat, I’m don't need to go out anymore. Keep the keys, that place was never home anyway.” The darkness hides behind buildings, tired of telling me again that it knows I’m lying. I know it too. It’s just worth imagining I have somewhere else to go.
I walk slow like you might catch up to me. I walk slow like I might stop. I walk slow every single night as the anvil starts to come back out of me. The metal whispers that I’ll only love you more tomorrow. I feel the poles of the earth asking me how I feel. Today I tell the truth. I know I’ll love you more the next day because I’ve had 24 more hours to think of you. I am baffled that I’ll love you more when this heart you own is already threatening to beat out of my rib cage. I am not mourning another day of the weight. I am mourning another day without its cure. There are maybe 1010 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. It’s Valentine’s Day. I want to tell you I love you (maybe). I want to apologize for every single time I said goodbye with a smile... it was dishonest of me.
But goodbye.
Today I tell the truth. Today, I woke up to the anvil on my chest again.
Usually, the first thing I do in the morning is try to give it a better name. A name less clichéd. It’s been an asteroid, a vacuum, a gravity; I promise they aren’t all space related. Today, I just called it an anvil. I didn’t push it off, I never do. I laid there awake with my cracking ribs until I absorbed the whole of it. I told myself that I am invincible with all that inside me and if I survive this again tomorrow, maybe it’s true. You’d be proud of me. When I imagine my legs giving out under the pressure of the atmosphere, I always imagine you beside me, suddenly, holding me up. It doesn’t make sense but I never said it would.
After I absorbed the anvil I spent my whole day spitting iron at my reflection any time I caught it in a mirror,
or puddle,
or window.
By some surprise, it never shattered. Never has before I suppose. Every time I looked, I hoped this time I’d see someone brave enough to hold you. Someone good enough that you’d let them. But I spit the wishes out too.
There are maybe 1000 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. I try to shake it away, promise myself that my mind is no different than a polaroid, and this time I’ll shake till it develops into something less painful.
There are maybe 1001 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. I just thought of how you might react if I read this to you. It makes me want to erase the whole **** thing. Today I deleted no less than 4 **** things. Some of them were more sure that I loved you. Now I’m just sure that I think I love you and that potential energy is deadly
I found myself thinking about someone else recently. It’s the first time in a long time. I felt like a valve was opened in my soul and all the pressure could come out. And with my hand over my heart, I closed it right back up. Because that pressure, it turns out to be the only holding me together.
Tonight I hung my coat up on a star and dropped my keys into the dark side of the moon. I won’t need either anymore. Tonight, like every night, I smile at darkness and make a promise. “Keep the coat, I’m don't need to go out anymore. Keep the keys, that place was never home anyway.” The darkness hides behind buildings, tired of telling me again that it knows I’m lying. I know it too. It’s just worth imagining I have somewhere else to go.
I walk slow like you might catch up to me. I walk slow like I might stop. I walk slow every single night as the anvil starts to come back out of me. The metal whispers that I’ll only love you more tomorrow. I feel the poles of the earth asking me how I feel. Today I tell the truth. I know I’ll love you more the next day because I’ve had 24 more hours to think of you. I am baffled that I’ll love you more when this heart you own is already threatening to beat out of my rib cage. I am not mourning another day of the weight. I am mourning another day without its cure. There are maybe 1010 permutations of you smiling at me dancing through my mind at any time. It’s Valentine’s Day. I want to tell you I love you (maybe). I want to apologize for every single time I said goodbye with a smile... it was dishonest of me.
But goodbye.
