twelve years in school / and straight As for the most of it / i still haven’t worked out what i’m supposed to do when i lose you / and sure / we’ve thought about it / we’ve thought about it as much as we do the time we got into a fight / and you hadn’t spoken to me for a week / until you’d shown up at my door past midnight on a rainy Tuesday / promise me you’ll never hurt me like that again / we’ve thought about it / as much as the bones that we’ve buried / the graves we’ve dug with our hands / the ripped up skeletons of sleepovers at your house / pretending it doesn’t mean anything when i brush your hair out of your face / (there are never any loose strands) / and let my fingertips rest on your cheek / EVEN IF IT’S BETRAYAL / an act of violence against the promises we’ve made / i promise i’ll never hurt you again / even if love always has a way of ruining things / when you look at me / with a supernova in your eyes / and something falls in the kitchen / and we have to pull away / and no amount of laughter / is enough to pretend / that i want anything more than / to kiss you / and etch the years of calling you my / friend / onto a gravestone
i’m sorry / i know i should move on / but dirt is still wedged in fingernails / and my clothes are still stained from the digging / i don’t know how to let go of seventeen years / even if half of it is underground / a body has no use without its skin / and i’m muscle slipping off bone / with missing sinews / I STILL THINK ABOUT THE TIME YOU HELD MY HAND WHEN I WAS ASLEEP / and i couldn’t forget the heat of your fingertips for months after that / the longing ached like a surgical scar / that long should’ve healed / i still have the Post-its you snuck between the pages of my textbook / while walking past my desk / i still have the hairtie you lent me / six years ago / when i forgot to bring mine / in a box that has been doubling as a coffin / i would’ve kept the Kinder Bueno wrappers / if i didn’t keep forgetting to take them out of my pocket / and those bags of one-dollar potato chips from Cheers / if i didn’t keep forgetting to take them out of my bag / even if they’re rotting / in the trash / in the back compartment of some truck / i still remember / you clinging to my left arm / sweaty bodies folding into each other / stumbling down a quiet pavement / feeding each other cheap snacks / laughing over crude jokes / pretending things will always be this way / always, always, always
today / i will learn to let you go / and i promise you will never hear about how much i like your hair / and i will stop looking at you / like i want to drink your laughter like a cold glass of milk in the morning / and want your hair between my fingers / until they become the lines of my palm / and want your scent in every inch of my lungs / because it makes no difference if i choke / after all / when i breathe / i only breathe your name / AND I WILL CONTINUE TO PRETEND THAT ALL IS GOOD / that i’m cool with you laughing at someone else’s jokes / when mine were the first you ever laughed at / and it doesn’t matter if someone else’s number / takes my place in your phone / i won’t mention how much i want you to kiss me / and stop bursting into laughter right after / as if it was a joke / as if i was being funny / as if i didn’t mean every word i said / as if you wouldn’t have said yes / if you knew / i meant it
and i know it couldn’t have worked out / but i still smile when i see tulips / because they’re your favourite / and if i met you when we were older / you would never have had to settle for plastic flowers / we wouldn’t have been stuck listening to the same Taylor Swift song / at the back of a dark classroom / in another universe / maybe you would’ve chosen the seat beside me in a half-empty lecture hall / or we would’ve bumped into each other at a picnic with our friends / and i would’ve had the courage to tell you / that i think too much about the times you call me / love / and kiss my hand to catch me off-guard / i’m sorry / i still want you to be happy / without the phantom of everything we lost clinging to the faces of every person you meet / even if it should be me who kisses your lower back when you finally get the tattoo you’ve always talked about / EVEN IF I CAN’T LET YOU GO
Editor: Leila W.
Comments