At The Start Of Summer
i am sorry for being this way, it's an ailment, a disease, a condition birthed because of you
If possible, listen to Desire Lines by Lush after this. You can skip reading this and get straight to the song as well.
Yesterday afternoon was hot and sticky. It was like living inside an uncomfortable memory. My shirt clung to my front and back, and sweat made its way down every crevice. I felt loose and free. A little ugly. My hair was pushed back, uncombed ever since Romi left. If it were up to me, I would have not showered either, letting bits of him cling to me in a way I could only hope he entirely would. If I paused for a minute and let the world go ahead without me, I could still feel closer to the night it had all unfolded itself right inside of me. I know I could not afford to stay back forever, and I knew forever was merely a fallacy, but in those moments that were out of the loop from the universe, I was ready to risk all rhyme and reason.Â
Of course, I could call him, talk to him like a normal person. Of course, I could ask him if he wanted to come over and come over and come. Over and over and over. But how could I bear to hear his voice, the gravel sitting at the bottom of his throat, the sudden lilt when he would ask a question? Unreasonably so, but I would want to split myself open and die. How could a person do this to me, how could I let a person do it to me? But then, what else could and would? He bore to touch me, and he bore it well, for that I was grateful. Such was my gratefulness that it folded my shame into the smallest possible version of itself and tucked it inside my rib. Not that being grateful was the right thing, but I had never learned the right things. I was not going to tell him that I felt that way, I did not want him to be tender anymore, not because I did not like it, but because I could not bring myself to accept it. So it all made its way under my skin and remained as an itch. So I let the gratefulness stab me in the back, while he pressed on me; a bed of thorns, a blanket of warmth.
Sitting on the stairs, rewriting my love for him in my head, I felt like it was a story as old as time. I was not tired of it though.Â
Maybe he was. Maybe he could sense the intensity and wanted to keep a distance as a subtle message. None of it made sense to me. Maybe it was the heat — the summer’s or ours from nights ago, but it was all getting to my head. I could succumb to it, but I chose not to. I let all of it wash over me, I walked inside my room and laid on the bed with my hair spread on the pillow. I reimagined it, thought of things I could have done better, thought of things he did that no one else could do ever. How was I to continue living knowing this was the end as I knew it? I did not want to ask him if it was the end, I did not want him to corroborate the corrosion of us.Â
Yesterday was slow, honey dripping all over me.Â
Today it rained, and I sat by the window, my hair washed, damp against my bare back. I let time move ahead, I waited for a while. And then I tied my hair and got back to life.Â
hello, i could not let my birthday month go by empty, so here’s a little something. writing a bigger better piece but have been very busy in my real life. not going to lie, do not like it all that much, but we learn and live and learn some more. feel free to be critical i am trying to develop a concrete writing style for smaller pieces, something that sounds innately like me.