I won't say it.
I'm a child again, but so are you.

I'll wrap my fingers tightly with yours, and with all the strength I pretend to possess, I'll push back. No matter how my bones threaten to crack and break, it's a small price to pay, scratching miles beneath my fingernails. Somewhere in the middle of this torturous playground game, I decided it would be easy. Distracting myself with the lyrics to Cat Stevens' Greatest Hits, counting cracks in the ceiling, studying snatches of the dictionary. Did you know nauseous actually means to make ill? The correct term for feeling ill is nauseated. The distraction feels like it's working, but just one imbalance, one push from you, is all that's needed to knock it down. 'How Can I Tell You?',  the structure that encloses me, the insistently pedantic English language, all desert me, and I'm feeling every bone ache, every joint seize, every muscle tighten and burn.

But I'll kick out, with the half of myself that's not wounded. I'll kick back at you, breaking the rules we failed to set down, rather than breaking myself. My hands grip tighter onto yours, and I know that if I say it, you'll let go. My bones that threaten to crack and break feel connected to yours, as if when eventually released they'll feel alien and numb. I won't say it. I won't say it. I won't say it.

I'm not sure what we're playing anymore.
I feel nauseated.

You say it.