Every breath I drew seemed to heal, cool, tighten.
It bathed my flesh until I was numb. The wheatless fields beside me seemed to be washed in it too; they were austere, quiet.
Even quieter still was the house around the bend, its cobblestone steps confirmed an enduring patience.
What does it mean? What does it all mean? I don’t think that I know anymore. I’m getting mixed messages from the condensation collecting on my water bottle and how it felt when you breathed in my ear. It felt like nothing. I felt nothing. The name “Margo,” sounds so forlorn. It’s beautiful. I wish that my name was Margo so that you might feel something when you heard it in conversation. I’m not sure if you do, but if you did I’d probably attribute it to something stupid, like a delusion that you have about me being someone I’m not, because I’ve never been able to understand why someone would love me.
I’m not sure what I found more unsettling about you:
the way you always walked like you were late for something or the way your lips looked like they were trembling all the time. I think it bothered me most how unphased you were. When I was crying you looked at me like I wasn’t.
And you were always reading a new book or article. It really annoyed me how much you talked about that, like this was a hobby of your’s, like you had just bought the Rosetta Stone to teach yourself Spanish.
I guess I just never trusted you because you asked me who my best friend was and then wrote it down in your notes so you could say it later to make me feel like you knew me, even though you really didn’t.
Sometimes I think about your mother. I still remember when we were at my house on Chatroulette. We laid on my bed in our pajamas and flirted with some guy from Wisconsin, thrilled and eating salt and vinegar chips. We were interrupted by her call; her voice on the phone sounded inhuman. I remember walking to your house that night with you. We took the knives and the cold medicine and put them in your closet where she couldn’t find them. We unplugged the phone from the wall, but she kept crying into the receiver, telling her ex-husband about how she had died her hair. She whispered, “Why don’t you love me anymore?”
When you would speak to her, your voice would get low, and sweet, and you’d wrap the blanket around her like my mom used to wrap a towel around me when I was done with swimming lessons.
Sometimes I pass your old house, and I see us sitting on your porch in the moonlight like we used to, talking about drugs or summer or our cute history teacher, and you’re looking back every few minutes to make sure that her bedroom light is still on.
It’s been off for quite some time now.
Everyone should treat their mind like it’s a well-kept secret. We all would like to believe that, deep down, we are geniuses. And we should, because we probably are. Is it better to be smart or wise? I’m pretty sure you can only be one. I never knew my parents when they were smart. I once saw a movie about a teenage boy who obsessively monitors his parents’ relationship because he wants to know if love is real. I really related to that. I don’t think I want to know the answer anymore, although I still listen to all of their fights. They are really nasty. I hope that I’m not going to be that nasty. I think that I’ve always been really afraid of becoming my mother, but I should have been more afraid of becoming my father. Neither of them looks for power in the right places, but she, at least, is closer.
Our nights together were always fumbling and short. I’d go home trembling when the stars were still out and I’d still feel the scratch of your beard on my neck. I remember always wanting to curl up on your lap and weep, and that was love the way I knew it at fifteen.
(Source: keldeox)
