May 14, 2021
You asked me to marry you on a gurney. Is this the real life or is this a My Chemical Romance song. For three hours, I sat in the waiting room next to your mother. I counted the M&M’s and peanuts in my bag of trail mix and read the same verse by Louise Glück over and over until it became paper nailed to my skull. Luckily, you’re dead; otherwise you will learn that love and trauma make strange bedfellows. You can love someone enough to pull them back by the scruff of their neck, but forget you’re still the one who pushed them. I guess that’s why I put my arms in my face and let a tiny blade sever the nerves in my left middle finger.
from "And I said—" by MT Vallarta, published in Blanket Sea