I’m Still Thinking Of You As You’re Locked In Someone Else’s Embrace

If I could go back I’d still push my neck against your teeth. I’d still open my mouth wide open for your barrel. I’d still take my clothes off for your blade.

I’d like to call you gun, I’d like to call you knife, I’d like to call you scalpel, because all you ever did was make me fall in love with red and call me pretty when all I ever did for you was bleed.

But still, here I sit, hurting because you don’t touch me anymore, because I am scared I’ll forget the way your skin smelled, because I can’t hear your voice, because it’s been so long since you looked at me and I remembered I’m beautiful.

Loving you was painful but it was the most ethereal thing I’ve ever known.

Since I first felt your hands on me I’ve lived with an ache so big because I’ve never been able to hold your hand outside, because we’ve never been able to have a love we could say out loud, because you’ve never really been mine.

You held me like you had dug for me, you touched me like you loved me, but you left each time like you were ashamed. You’d go back to your life like you had never even heard my name. I kept your secrets, you never even had to ask. I was always your favorite one, your biggest one, the one you were most afraid would see the light of day.

And still, I sit here thinking about how each time we kissed the constellations unraveled themselves for us and landed at our feet. Still, not being with you is the cruelest thing.

Still, I’m sitting here thinking you were it for me.

Still, I love you.

Still, I miss you.

I’m wondering, is it raining where you are? Are you happy? Do you ever lay awake in the dark and think about us?

For me, it’s always raining, even when it’s not. I can’t remember the last time I smiled and meant it. And even when my heart has left my body and taken all I am with it, even when I’m too empty of everything, I’m too full of you. Even amidst all the aching, I still think of you, more than I should, more than you deserve for me to. I’m always thinking of you when it’s late, even as you’re locked in someone else’s embrace.

I’m wondering, if you could go back would you choose different? Was I ever even a choice?

I’d like to blame it on your cowardice, on your fear for setting fire to the same city you’ve always known, on your guilt for giving someone else reason to feel pain. But these are all stories I tell myself to distract from the fact that if you really wanted to you’d be here.

I hope you’re happy where you are. I hope you’re smiling, even if I’m still choking on your name, even if you’ve forgotten mine.

Still, I’d give it all for our love to be something we could say out loud. Still I’d take my clothes off for your knife. If I could go back, I’d do it again. I’d kiss you and then cup all the constellations into my hands. I’d use them to burn this world in which I have to exist without you to the ground. I’d grab your hand and show you how to build new cities.