Status: You are all beautiful. Thank you for the comments.
You
18th May 2002
I wish you’d let me come with you to the clinic that day. You let me drop you off but told me to circle the roads for an hour or so. When you got back in the car your face was ashen and your shoulders hunched forward. As we drove I moved to take your hand but you moved it into your lap folding your fingers together tightly.
It’d always been hard to tell what you were thinking. I often made a game out of trying to figure you out but this was the moment the game grew too tricky, too challenging, too frustrating and wearying. I shouldn’t blame you for this because at 21 neither of us knew what we were supposed to do next and yet…
When we got back to the apartment you walked unsteadily upstairs and climbed into bed fully clothed. You let me climb in next to you and hold you but your body was stiff and unyielding. I accepted that I would never understand what happened in that room or what it was like but I wish you had tried to tell me. You never gave me the chance to try to understand. I resented that door being closed to me. I hated that you were determined to shut me out and play the victim.
We argued a lot after that. It was always about petty things because neither of us dared to speak of what was really hurting us in case we couldn’t handle the truth. I would shout and then you would cry (you cried a lot that month) and you hated crying in front of people so arguments went unfinished. Then we ran out of stupid things to argue about. We were both so sick of biting our tongues during heated exchanges that we became the most accommodating versions of ourselves. Our exchanges were mechanical. We had polite dinners where we didn’t look at one another and when we went to bed at night we slept as far apart from one another as we could. Both of us opened and closed our mouths trying to find a way to talk through the suffocating silence but neither of us could find the strength. We walked around the house like emotionless zombies never daring to walk to close to one another in case even the lightest brush of skin reanimated our anguish.
It’d always been hard to tell what you were thinking. I often made a game out of trying to figure you out but this was the moment the game grew too tricky, too challenging, too frustrating and wearying. I shouldn’t blame you for this because at 21 neither of us knew what we were supposed to do next and yet…
When we got back to the apartment you walked unsteadily upstairs and climbed into bed fully clothed. You let me climb in next to you and hold you but your body was stiff and unyielding. I accepted that I would never understand what happened in that room or what it was like but I wish you had tried to tell me. You never gave me the chance to try to understand. I resented that door being closed to me. I hated that you were determined to shut me out and play the victim.
We argued a lot after that. It was always about petty things because neither of us dared to speak of what was really hurting us in case we couldn’t handle the truth. I would shout and then you would cry (you cried a lot that month) and you hated crying in front of people so arguments went unfinished. Then we ran out of stupid things to argue about. We were both so sick of biting our tongues during heated exchanges that we became the most accommodating versions of ourselves. Our exchanges were mechanical. We had polite dinners where we didn’t look at one another and when we went to bed at night we slept as far apart from one another as we could. Both of us opened and closed our mouths trying to find a way to talk through the suffocating silence but neither of us could find the strength. We walked around the house like emotionless zombies never daring to walk to close to one another in case even the lightest brush of skin reanimated our anguish.
♠ ♠ ♠
As you turn to your mind and your thoughts they rewind to old happenings and the things that are done.