I Am Three

I am three

I ask my mother to have ice cream for dinner

And she says no

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will have ice cream for dinner

I am ten

The people at my new school make fun of my hair

My arms

My legs

My teeth

I tell my mother I want to take my skin off

I want to pluck my bones out

She tells me I could try waxing

I could get braces

She tells me it will hurt

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will be beautiful

I will be able to handle the pain of changing my body

I am fifteen

The doctor says I need to be admitted to the hospital

I say no

My parents say I do not get a choice

I'm a minor

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

My "no" will matter

I will get to choose when and how I heal

I will get to choose if I don’t

I am 17 and there is ice cream in the freezer

And I eat it for dinner

But the satisfaction isint as sweet as I thought it would be at three

I miss my mother and decide to have a side of vegetables too

I am 17 and I am beautiful because I say so

I am 17 and decide to heal because I deserve to

I am 17

I am not grown up

I am still growing

I think I will be for a while

The last time I saw love was on my doorstep on a Sunday afternoon in winter. She looked pale and weak. Clutching a threadbare beige coat, arms hugged around her waist, already wilting daisies in hand. I could see a red stain blossoming behind the coarse material. I peak out the curtains, but leave the door closed. She catches a glimpse of me in the window and something like hope flickers in her iris. 

I let the curtain fall, my heart in my throat, then in my palms. It’s beating irregular. Not quite steady but not quite moving to the symphony in used to when love arrived. Love lays a palm against the front door. She calls my name. Barely audible over the wind but how could I mistake her voice. Seeping through the entryway and into my skin. 

My heart is still in my hands. I can hear love’s laboured breathing, just an arm’s length away. All I would have to do is turn the handle, a hopeful voice whispers. But I know this is a lie. Love is bleeding out on my door step. She is dying. I would have to do so much more to save her. Again. And I know that is why she is here. Because she cannot save herself. The greying supermarket flowers in her fingers are not just an offer, but a plea. 

I want to say “Love, no,” or “Love, I can’t,” or “Love, I’m sorry,”. I want to open the door and take her inside and treat her wounds and ask her to hold me as she heals. But I can’t. I can’t. Not this time. So I say nothing. I rest my back again the door and exhale. Or try to. All that comes out is a mangled sob and I clasp a damp palm across my mouth. She calls again, softer this time, nostaliga leaking into her voice. The muscle in my palms jumps and my eyes prick, hot tears flooding my vision. I press my back against the door, needing something solid. 

I have never held out this long. Always given in at the last minute, not ready to let her go. To let her die. Last time she had stopped breathing in the car and I waited a full minute before I jerked the car to a stop on the side of the highway and resuscitated her in the back seat. Begging her to come back. That I was sorry. That I could not live without her. She woke with a gasp and the promise of forever on her lips, as she always does. She has not been the same since then. She hasn't been the same for months, but especially since then. 

A bang rattles the door frame and I bite down on the soft spot between my thumb and forefinger, my back sliding down the door frame. It's quiet now, as I sit on the floor in the entereway. I squeeze my eyes shut and let the tears come silently, cradling my heart against my chest. I hold my breathe for a moment when I think I hear something on the otherside of the door, but it is just loves wheezing breath. I begin counting the seconds between her each inhale and exhale, as they gradually grow father and father apart. My heart is warm throught the fabric of shirt and my head is heavy. Soon love’s breathing stalls and does not pick up again. 

I count to ten and grit my teeth against the urge to toss my heart aside and pry open the door and breathe life into her. To yank her jacket open and shove my longing into her wound until the bleeding stops. To press assurances into the chest over and over until the spark returns to her eyes and she tells me everything is going to be okay. I’ve counted to twenty now and my back aches from this position on the ground but I dare not move. Not shatter this already delicate moment. Then I’ve counted to thirty, then sixty, then one hundred and twenty and then I loose track of the moments as my eyelids droop and rest tugs me under. I fall into a dreamless sleep with salt stained cheeks and my heart beating steady in my hands. 

When I wake, it is dark. As I peel my eyes open I realize it is the street lights that are casting dancing patterns across the tiled floor through the blinds. The only other source of light is a glow emitting from the kitchen where I must have left the switch on. My throat is dry and my legs ache as I stretch them out. It takes a second for me to recall where I am and why. A sweet flicker of a moment before I realize the weight of my heart in my hands is like lead. But it is whole. I breathe deep, feeling the ether stretch my lungs, and let my eyes close for an instant. Atleast it is whole, I remind myself. 

I shift my shoulders and adjust my poorly positioned neck that I know will hurt for days as I stand. I set my heart down by the door and glance out the curtains hesitantly. Even in the dark I can tell no one is there and I don’t know what I expected or what I feel. Disappointment and relief, panic and guilt, thread themselves between each other in knots in my stomach. I breathe deep again, hand finding the cool doorknob, gripping this understanding of the decision I have made. 

The door creaks and the cold of the night washes over me all at once, my breath fogging in front of me. I let my gaze wander across the landscape of the lawn and small porch. There is nothing, no matter how hard I squint into the black, there is nothing. I swallow and glance down where the welcome mat lays at the foot of the front door. Something lays there and I lean down to see what it is. My fingers brush over brittle stems. The flowers are long withered, a few frosted fallen petals remain, but most must have been blow to the wind. I set the corpses of the plants back down and retreat behind the door again, the cold air still clinging to my bones. 

I click the lock shut and rest my forehead against the white entryway. Everything aches and when I swallow it hurts but somehow I feel indescribably lighter. This time the weight on my chest is dense but not unbearable. Like in the aftermath of a disaster, when you’re standing in the midst of the wreckage, everything is awful and terrifying and you might want to fall to your knees and scream but at least the ground has stopped shifting. At least you know what you’re working with. You know the damage has been done and there will be no more anguish of breaking. Just the pain that comes with healing. And of course, it will hurt, but there is promise that it will eventually hurt less. And less. And maybe one day it won’t hurt at all anymore. Maybe. 

I lift my head and turn on the lightswitch. Picking my heart up off the floor, I make my way to the bathroom, where I promise myself warmth awaits me. In the mirror I marvel at my rid rimmed eyes and chapped lips. My wild hair and bear shoulder where my shirt has slipped. I press my fingers against the glass and sigh. I swallow my heart and feel the wound settle inside me taking a moment to readjust to the weight. As I peel my clothes from body, I catch a glimpse of something move in the mirror and my heart skips a beat. But by the time my eyes focus, there is nothing there. My gaze flits around the room but there is nothing. I grip the counter and steady myself repeating this to myself. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. She is dead. There is nothing left of her. Except memory, a disloyal part of me whispers. Except ghost. Except ghost, I agree relecutently. 

I undress and avoid letting my gaze snag in the mirror again. The water is turned on and before long steam fogs the glass anyways. Under the stream the cold melts from my muscles and some stiffness surrenders to the current. Here I sit with the knowledge that she is dead. That I let her die. I may not have been the one that dealt the killing blow but I let her bleed out on my doorstep. And she is gone. She may come back to haunt me occasionally, but I trust these instances will fade eventually with her memory. By trust I mean I hope. But I can not dwell on this. Cannot let the thought of her suffocate me. She is dead and I am not. I am alive. I let her die so I could live. And I will. I will. 

- Love will haunt you long after she is dead

Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. And I think this is why you were the person out of all the persons I've ever loved that I got to keep in my life even after. Because loving you was growing up. Was realizing just because you can't have the entire good thing doesn't mean you have to deny yourself the piece offered. That a slice of lovely doesn't have to be the end of you. Was learning to make do with what I was given with a smile and a thank you. Was learning to be grateful. Because we don't always get to have what we want. And we can't keep throwing tantrums by having panic attacks in the bathroom over accidental glances and unintentionally broken promises.

Loving you was growing up. Was realizing some people are nice to everybody. They have a talent for making people feel wanted, but this does not mean that they want you, and that is okay. That is okay. Their kindness is not their fault. Loving you was growing up. Was realizing people are busy. People's lives don't stop because you have chosen this inopportune time to become madly infatuated with them. They don't text you back. They don't love you back. They don't think about you. They forget to ask about your day. They say things that hurt even when that wasn't what they meant to do. And you grow up. You brush it off. You realize this is not a reflection of your self worth. You stop expecting people to fulfill what you dreamed them up to be. You let them just be them. And you learn to let this be enough.

Because loving you was growing up. To keep loving you would have killed me, and I realized for the first time how childish it was to disintegrate into a hurricane of self-destruction when rejection was so softly gifted. To ache until I tore like it would change anything. And I suppose growing up doesn't have to mean wanting to live, but it at least meant trying. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.

~ #4: reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him

(Original excerpt removed from '#3: reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him')

When is the last time I brushed my teeth?

Looked at my father and did not think him weak

When is the last time I ate cereal for breakfast

Or went outside

Or held someone’s hand

When is the last time I cried

Really wept

Or knew why I was getting out of bed

When is the last time I saw you

When is the last time I loved

Looked at someone at did not simply think them beautiful

But wondered what it would be like for that beauty to choose me

When is the last time someone looked at me and I blushed

Not because I felt ashamed but because

Their gaze tasted like possibility

Like a honeymoon in library

When is the last time I felt

Excited

When is the last time I wanted

And was hurt by disappointment

When is the last time my heartbreak fissured the earth

Instead of simply burying me deeper in endless night

When is the last time I let someone take from me until I was empty

And sat with that hollow until I was rebirthed

When is the last time I was a child

When is the last time I was alone and felt lonely

When is the last time I wrote a poem?

It has been so long

So

Long

~ I have since been resuscitated

I would like to be loved

And perhaps this is selfish of me

But if the most selfish thing I do

In this life

Is long

To be wanted

So be it

For I have already

Burned for this sin

My desire a fire

That has left me scarred

And my heart

Disfigured

You taught me a softer way to love. Which is to say I have always loved like wildfire. Always loved vicious. All or nothing. Overwhelming and unbearable and so hard it hurts. Always loved a war of desire leaving my heart a ravaged battlefield with thick scar tissue in the shape of words they never said. But we burnt out. Which is to say I fell out of love with you in the summer sun in the middle of a movie theatre parking lot and it had nothing to do with you. And I did not realize this for years in the aftermath of this heartbreak. It had nothing to do with you. For you had always been you. It was me. For it is always me and the moment I am disillusioned regarding exactly what I am deserving of. Regarding exactly what you are offering and what I had misinterpreted your open palms and open smile for. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.

Which is to say when I did, touching you ached less. Your name in my mouth didn't sting so much. Every time you talked about someone else it never cut deep enough to leave a mark. And then it stopped cutting at all. And then I started being happy for you. And now, all this time later, I suppose when I call you my friend I mean it. Which is to say I never text you first anymore and it isn't even on purpose. Which is to say we talk when we have time, usually when you are home from school for the break, and I laugh like renewal, but never with enough joy that it threatens to rip my seams. Which is to say I have not fallen in love with anyone since you but I'm okay with that. I know I could. Which is to say I do not rearrange plans when you call and I do not particularly care about seeming intelligent to you anymore. Or beautiful. Or talented. Or worthy. I don't worry about keeping you coming back. Because I know you'll return for us eventually. And we'll pick up where we left off. Like we cannot help but meet again where you last left the person I used to be.

But every time we are together for more than a handful of moments I am in love with you again. And my heartbeat syncs with yours. And when you look at me I want you to keep looking. And when you touch me I want you to keep touching. But you never do. And I am practiced in this. So this time you walk me all the way home and it doesn't even get my hopes up. This time you sing to me at my doorstep and I do not flinch. Remind myself it is not your fault your kindness works like this. That this is just who you are. Because I will walk inside and peek out the glass for you to look back and you won't. And I will remember in the reflection that I am no one special to you. And I will fall out of love again, just like I have done a dozen times before with you. And I will go upstairs and take a shower humming the lyrics to the song you last played me and when I step out of the stream of water, my desire will be washed down the drain. And I will cease loving you until next time.

You taught me a softer way to love. Because I think you taught me there are some people we will never fall all the way out of love with. And that can be okay sometimes. As long as you are not destroying yourself with longing. Some things cannot be helped.

~ #3 : reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him