Boyhood Bravery

When I breathe in the air is cold, almost freezing in my lungs even though the electricity has been shut off for a week now and heat hangs in the air. I'm not sure how but bugs have begun to take over the apartment; I feel them crawling and climbing all over my knobby knees. I look over at him and somehow he always manages to smile, lips parting and teeth showing in a crooked grin. The tilt to his lips somehow looks a lot like I love you and I can't seem to hide the way my fingers shake against the realization. It makes something stutter-stop in my heart and I wonder if he knows I feel myself falling apart every time he breaths my name, fingers wrapped in mine, tawny head against my chest, soft breaths exhaled onto cold, hard skin. Cold and hard, like my heart.

It's just too much.