I Don’t Need You

I don’t need you.

I don’t need someone to shop with. I know what I want perfectly. I get things done faster on my own. The list in my head doesn’t get jumbled with conversation like when I used to accidentally mix different colored play-doh together.

I don’t need someone to sleep with. I like to have the pillow and blankets to myself, the quilt perfectly tucked under my feet, a habit after watching the first Paranormal Activity in a hotel room with boys who should not have been there.

I don’t need someone to sit with. It’s after all what it is – sitting. The comfort of being in your own mind and your person open to different sounds and smells and experiences. The serendipity of just … being.

I don’t need someone to graze along aisles of supermarkets with me, their high shelves piling with MSG filled foods from places with languages I cannot speak. When I reach to buy them, I don’t need someone to tell me I shouldn’t.

I don’t need someone to share my sadness. I have coped with it well, all my life. I know the exact milligram the weight of which these burdens sit on me, and I could recite the number of chains I drag with every step. I will find the antidote to my own fears and problems, potions that require ingredients no one but the demons inside me have heard of.

I don’t need anyone and I tell myself, I especially don’t need you.

I don’t need you to shop with me and fill a simple grocery run with conversations that never go answered; where our questions about sexism and politics end up in a dirty joke and back bending laughter.

I don’t need you to sleep with me and be the less uncomfortable version of the pillow I’ve grown used to; to provide a warmth I do not need in this heat. Your chest does not sink under my weight, or mould to the shape of my ear. You do not smell like the scent I have long ago associated with sleep, but which is likely the smell of dried up drool.

I don’t need you to sit with me and turn a simple act into one of nightmarish memories intertwined with scenes I imagine only play out in chick flicks; where your hand sits so close to mine, I almost feel its warmth envelop mine.

I don’t need you to graze the supermarket aisles with me, filling our basket mountains high, with snacks I know I should not eat but will in front of a tiny laptop screen in a stuffy room.

I don’t need you to share my sadness, your arms overwhelming every demon that knows my name and secrets. When you are gone, I am afraid I might not be able to ever find the antidote.

I don’t need you, I tell myself that as I slip into your embrace. But I sure as hell want you.