Words

Poetry, prose, and other writing

[bythenameofannabellee]

Every part of me, every thought I've ever had, feels safe with you. When I look at you, I remember who I'm supposed to be.

[bythenameofannabellee]

I am so homesick it is burning a hole in my esophagus. There are two wolves inside me named love and grief and I get nauseous every time the power shifts. I cannot or will not keep my fingers out of my wounds and I do not know any other way to beg for forgiveness.

[bythenameofannabellee]

I dreamt of him last night. I met him in a rest stop; he was with his brothers on some kind of boys' trip. I can't remember his face quite right when I'm awake, but here it was perfect, perfect down to every stunning angle. Except for the eyes. Instead of those sparkling, pine green eyes - the feature I remember best when I'm awake - he had intense, mahogany eyes just like mine. Looking into them, I noted, "His eyes have never looked brown before," but the thought passed before it could lead me to realize I was dreaming. I liked his eyes before I liked pine green.

I was there for something serious, something I can't remember, but I couldn't bring myself to spoil his fun, so I told him I was on a road trip too. I cracked a joke about some poorly worded line on a 99 cent snack food wrapper to prove it. He laughed that magical laugh even though my joke wasn't very funny, and then he put his arm around my shoulders, and said, "You and me, we have some kind of bond going," because he'd made a similar joke about the sign outside a few minutes ago. I was sure it had been funnier that time.

He meant what he'd said in that way he always does, treating everyone he meets like a dear old friend. He'd said it with that cheerful and disarming manner that people who've always had the whole world on their side have about them. But there was no trace of jealousy in the way I leaned my head into his chest, only thinly restrained desperation, the way you hold your hands uncomfortably close to the fire on a cold night. I did not put my arm around his waist in kind. Even in dreams, I'm afraid to touch him.

Even in dreams, he is not mine to reach for.

[bythenameofannabellee]

"And the issue wasn't that my love went unrequited; it was that you loved me like July warms your skin and tousles your hair, and I loved you like I would rip out God's throat with my teeth if I ever saw pain in your eyes."

[bythenameofannabellee]

A love letter

I love you not the way a knight loves a princess in a tower but the way a cleric loves the divine. You deserve to be loved softly, gently, the way dewdrops caress a meadow. I love you the way a tornado levels a city.

When I say, "I love you," I do not mean "I will wrap you in a blanket of sunlight so tenderly you forget you have ever felt cold," so much as "I will slaughter legions and trample empires to build, brick by bloody brick, a kinder world for your children, even if they are not mine."

I love you, not as in "I would die for you," or even "I would live for you," but "If I could live a thousand lives, I would damn myself for you in every one."

[bythenameofannabellee]

And after all this time, I still think of you.

On warm, summer nights, I can still see the peach skies overhead and smell the honeysuckle in the air, like the day we met. When the weather is right, I can feel the weight of the thick, muggy air on the nights I took long walks to get to know you. I can almost hear your laughter, but it's just the rush of the river.

There are so many rivers here.

I want to feel the tickle of the prairie grass, your hands steady on my shoulders. I want to feel the mud between my toes on the lakeshore.

There are sand beaches here.

I remember the glow of your skin that August, bronzed from the summer sun, radiating warmth into my fingertips.

Everything was gold. None of it could stay.

I want to go home, but home is a time that has long since passed.

[bythenameofannabellee]

"I looked for you everywhere."

"Did you ever find me?"

He nods. "In the instant a lighting strike makes the whole world look alien. In the sharp points of amethyst, when they don't cut my hands. In glow of moonlight on deep water, in the precarious second my eyes linger on the depths. In the first cold breeze at the end of a brutal summer. In the rush of discovering something unexpected. In the quiet beauty of a marble sculpture. In an especially spectacular sunset.

Never in the sunrise. Never in anyone else."

[bythenameofannabellee]

"I had a fairytale love once. I threw it away to make something of myself. As though a person could be anything greater than madly in love. As though a love like that would make you choose."

[bythenameofannabellee]

How could I have known

that despite all your denials, I didn't imagine the twinkle in your eye. that you really were watching me from across every room like a puzzle you'd spend your whole life trying and never solve. If I saw you tomorrow, would you still look at me that way?

that when I missed your call in the middle of the night, it wasn't nothing. For years, I waited up hoping you would try again.

that you loved me, and that you thought I knew. that despite all your grandiosity, you left a glass heart in my shaky hands.

that if I'd only waited a while longer, we'd have spent the rest of our lives watching watercolor sunsets blanket the plains together. that I'd travel the world and never see another sunset like those and never meet anyone I'd rather watch with. that I'd try and fail to hate you and then try and fail to forget you. that you'd try the same.

that I had the power to destroy you.

that you would've followed when I left, but that you'd listen when I told you not to.

that by the time I realized what I'd done, it would be too late.

Most nights I pray that in another life, you followed anyway. Some nights I pray that in another life, I never left.

I don't believe in god.

[bythenameofannabellee]

I have a million

Prayers and offerings and pleas

They’re all “I miss you”

[bythenameofannabellee]

I want you to know I thought the world of you, and I want you to know you never deserved it. My pain deserved a better cause.

To the boy who wanted a trophy, not a partner

[bythenameofannabellee]

“Your very existence is a challenge I was born to answer.”

— I wouldn’t even know how to stop

[bythenameofannabellee]

“It’s a kind of mourning. You’ve lost two people: the person you thought they were, and the person you thought you could be.”

— my best friend, trying to convince me that it’s okay to let go

[bythenameofannabellee]

I don’t want him. Really, I don’t!

It’s just a little crush; that’s all. It’s only that every time I see him my tongue turns to lead in my mouth and my heart stops beating in case my brain needs the extra energy to memorize the way he brushes his hair out of his eyes.

And his eyes.

They’re nothing special, not really. They’re just shimmering pools of gold that make my legs quiver and my lungs fail with a single glance. They just flicker like stars peeking out from behind a sunset when I make him smile is all.

That smile.

Its nothing. I make plenty of people smile. It’s just that when I make him smile, my stomach does a backflip and flies into my throat and all I can think about for the rest of the day is what else I could elicit given some time alone with him.

I don’t want him; I swear.

It’s just that he touched my hand once and now every second I spend not touching him is a small eternity of agony and anyone else’s skin on mine feels like a blasphemy of the highest order.

I don’t want to want him. I don’t.

It’s just that I really, really do.

[bythenameofannabellee]

Clenching my fists tighter won't change the fact that you slipped through my fingers, but I can't bear to feel the muscles release. I'm not ready to let go.

[bythenameofannabellee]

I can't move on. Every inch of my skin is poison to any lover who dares caress it, and you have the only antidote.

I hate that he's choking, but I'm relieved someone wanted a taste.

[bythenameofannabellee]

“What do you think of the notion that happiness can’t exist without sadness? Pleasure without pain?” He asks.

I start to say that it’s ludicrous, as I’ve told every other who’s asked me, but he has a knack for flipping my world on its head. I stop to think.

I visualize the passenger seat of my car. It looked just fine until I saw him sitting in it, but the once normal emptiness has been crushing ever since. I recall two weeks without hearing from him. I lived seventeen years without realizing anything was missing, but I now see the world in sepia after only a few days of his absence. I feel my nerves’ still raging molecular fireworks show where his hand grazed my back in an antique store three months ago. Even my own body is no longer neutral; existence without his touch is excruciating.

As per usual, he's changed me.

“I suppose it’s valid,” I concede. “Think of a withdrawal. If you get too high for too long, normalcy becomes a crash.”

I don’t tell him that a much better example than addiction would be the way that, after breathing the same air as him, anything else feels like suffocating.