May 28th, 2010

stupid

I braced for your words that day. I should have suspected what you were going to say, but god damn it I was too stupid to notice. Maybe, on a subconscious level, I knew you wouldn’t take me seriously. I just wouldn’t have expected you to be so brazen about it. To laugh in my face about how you thought what I was saying was stupid.

I called out for you. I needed confirmation that I was allowed to grieve. I told you that my father died a week ago and that my mother didn’t tell me until yesterday. I told you that I fell to my knees, still clutching the landline phone in my hands as I sobbed into the receiver. I once told you that it’s been long enough that I misremembered his facial features. His nose turned down instead of up. I accidentally mirrored the direction of the scar on his lip. You told me back when we moved in together that I didn’t need the pictures of them anymore. You told me that the Chinese hated having kids that didn’t move on quickly. Moving in with you was the “bravest thing I could have done” and “a signifier that I fulfilled my duty”. You were tender back when we first met, and rough now. Not just with your words, but with your body.

You told me that I never let go of things the way I should have.

You told me that you thought I hated my mom and dad.

I told you no. I told you that I loved them.

You told me that “did you love them more than me”?

I remember choking on my words. Both when I quieted down, and when your hand made for my throat. I saw you rein it in like an unruly horse about to trample over me. My prince atop a white horse. The cowboy across from me in a Western standoff. Your fingers waggled over your Magnum. I am not armed. My ankle-length skirt billows in the south wind. The hem opens up for you, and only you in this town populated by dying cacti and tumbleweeds. Is this how couples talk to one another? I asked you that once. You said yes. This is romance.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.