Un
I thought about it, wondering if I should get off the bus, even going so far as sleeping and leaving it to if I woke up at the right stop. I had two chances. And I did wake up both times. In the end, I didn’t clamber off. I slowly made the uphill climb in the rain.
Love makes everyone cheapen themselves.
Deux
‘Say something.’
‘I have nothing to say.’
How could I relate this hailstorm going on inside, incomparable to the rain falling softly on us? Finally, he gave up. And at some point, I thought it was just me holding onto his hand that kept us together. He had gone completely slack in his touch and we might as well have been two strangers walking like zombies amongst the rest of the city.
Trois
I read his reply and want to put my head on my arms, on the desk. It’s fixed. There’s an incessant chatter in French going about, but all my thoughts are still in English, with nothing to do about parking and clothes-shopping in Paris. I try concealing my smile but it’s crept up on me slowly. He’s the best thief of my thoughts.
And I can’t wait to see him again.
Quatre
He bites into an apple. I notice the core of a pear on his plate. And he had refused my fruit salad. The brat.
“You do realise there’s apple and pear in this as well.”
He protests, “But it tastes different after you cut it!”
“Mmmhmmm…”
Cinq
There’s still nothing I’d say to you right now. Despite your argument, you still took something from me. And that’s my trust. Did you really expect me to tell you that it’s okay? I’m feeling this crazy shock and maddening disappointment, like I’ve been told the biggest lie, and you can blame me for not wanting to talk to you? Are you kidding? This insecurity is like a rocking chair and everytime you hold me, you tell me to trust you. And it stops. That’s why I didn’t move. Not this time. Because the last time I did, you told me to ‘do something about it’. Then you push the blame onto me? REALLY? How could you imply that I was wrong for simply not wanting to talk about it?
Forget love, because when you take this as it is, this isn’t what people even do to each other.
Don’t.
Sometimes I think that you deliberately try to push me away. Consider the last time. And now. It’s like your sub-conscious (hello, bastard) getting to you, and then you try to either make me leave or take leave yourself, but as you did so today, your last words were to make sure that it appears to be my fault. The last time, I was naive enough to end up at your feet in a pool of tears, and then you went about mending what we have.
But I haven’t cried.
Today, I know what I’ve done, and haven’t. Clearly. And I’m not going to apologise for lying there in silence, trying to process how the fuck things could’ve gone so wrong, even as you begged me to say anything. If my silence makes you uncomfortable, so be it. And this time, I’m not going to try to explain away what you did, because I see that as somehow admitting my guilt when I haven’t done anything. I haven’t. You told me to take you as you are. What are you doing to me now? Besides pushing all the blame and everything that went awry onto me? Who do you want me to be?
Maybe I am not enough. But I’ve said that before.
