it’s tuesday and we’re drunk anyway and our ankles are in the pond and my back is flat against the dock and you are looking down at me while i tell you sad things. i close my eyes and spill out secrets because once they rise in me i can’t stop them until they bubble past my teeth.
“it happened,” i say, “and then it kept happening.” i find a laugh in my chest where i know there shouldn’t be. sometimes i pretend i’m an anchor because there’s a difference between sinking and drowning. i peek one eye open to you, where you’re frowning.
you don’t say anything. i worry i’ve gone too far. told you too much, and now you’ll see i’m a project and you’ll leave. you’ll untie the boat. you’ll leave me stranded in the storm. all that cliche shit everybody writes about but hurts worse than words know. because people leave, and leave, and leave, you know?
“it’s good!” i blurt, because i can’t stand the silence, i sit up quickly, i splash my feet, i pull funny like a blanket up and around me, “shit happens. what doesn’t kill me made me a bitch on wheels.” and shit happens. it happens until it crawls down your throat and just when it would be better to die, you get a breath in instead of choke. shit happens and you wake up and it happens and you go to sleep and it feels like the same shit, all grey and ugly and the underbelly of the beast, shit happens but you can’t talk about it because otherwise, people know, and you can’t show other people you’re weak.
but you’re not laughing. i ruined whatever we have. your lips twist to the side. i try untalking, unmaking the mistake, coiling back up all the useless garbage about my dumb life which isn’t even that bad, i’m just whiny. “i’m good now,” i say, “i’m okay,” i say, “it sucked at the time but now im fine,” and i say it, because the lie feels right, but i hate the way your face looks, like you’re trying to see under my skin, like now that you know you can’t un-know. like you’ve solved the problem and the equation reveals that i’m a piece of shit.
“i’m sorry,” you say instead. “that shouldn’t have happened.”
i bark a laugh, try to talk, but you shake your head. cut me off. “no,” you say, “i’m here if you ever want to talk.” you keep searching with those wide eyes so i gotta look anywhere else, anywhere else, down to the fish and the water, down and down, away from the only thing i haven’t figured out how to laugh about, away from the glow of you and the warmth that radiates now, away from this terrible truth you’re weaving between us, “i love you,” you say, “i’m glad it didn’t kill you but it shouldn’t have happened that way.”
oh no. oh god. oh god, wouldn’t it have just been easier if you had waved it all off. can’t we just make a joke and move along. oh god, oh no, not this, not love. i can’t handle it. i’m not strong enough.
“i love you,” you repeat while i’m stifling a sob. you put one hand out on my shoulder. i want to cut my own hands off. “what happened to you,” you say, and it sounds like an alarm, “was terrible, and you didn’t deserve it, and it was entirely wrong.”
i don’t know how to handle this. i don’t know where to go if you’re telling me i don’t deserve it when the crumbling hits. i don’t know what to do but buckle down and survive it. because what comes next if you’re right. what if you don’t leave my side. what if i wake up one day and shit happened again just as it started to all go right. what if i wake up and the truth is that i did nothing to deserve this shitty old life.
“it’s okay,” you say. “you’re going to be alright.”
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