treatswords

Jacob was leaving and I had no say in the matter.

“Every positive trait I have is because of you and every negative trait you have is because of me. That’s why I have to leave… it’s for your own good.”

Three days later, I strip our pictures off the walls, leaving small holes in pink paint.

I throw his dirty socks he refused to wash, on his side of our bedroom.

I pretend I won’t miss his smell as I leave.

I inhale one last time, trying not to linger.

Toothpaste, a touch of amber, sweaty bald head.

After the breakup, I take my time to heal.

I stuff my heart in a box and hope no one sees it.

It thumps in there for awhile, the sound vibrating the wood around it. It remains unseen until he comes along.

We meet online.

Tattoo lacing around his forearm, thick glasses, kind eyes.

“That’s what sold me, those eyes.”

His small apartment becomes my safe place.

“My sanctuary,” he calls it.

A branch hangs above his bed, chunky yellow lights wrapping around it.

We shut the lights off and lay beneath it. I imagine the wind blowing through the tree he collected it from.

We tangle together, two pieces of string tied in a knot.

A record playing something blue.

Thick beard, wrinkled lips, the corner of his glasses brushing against my face. The bed glowing orange from the light of his desktop.

I turn my leg to see a tangerine bruise.

He kisses me, and I feel the peel around my heart, coiling into a string of citrus skin.

“What are you thinking about?”

He asks.

You.

I don’t say.

I fall asleep that way. Buried in a kind man.

I’m not used to it. My body rejects his affection by rolling to the other side of the bed.

He can feel the cool hole in the sheets between us. His toes circling in it.

It’s Sunday afternoon and we head down to the farmers market.

Purple eggplant sizzles on a grill, samples of baked peanut butter kale is handed out in small paper cups.

We get cups of tea from a small shop behind the market. A bag of pink, dried peonies sit next to the cash register.

We hold our warm cups smelling of cinnamon, rain drifts down on us.

He’s expressive. When he speaks his face lights up. He sparks in front of me, painting a story from his childhood. Hands moving, eye brows curving, a small piece of green kale stuck between his teeth.

I buy a deck of tarot cards.

“So that we can read our futures.”

I say.

If he could read my past, he would see the living carcass I’ve become.

A tunnel of bones piled onto one another, an outline of what once was.

“I used to be full of light, I’m not sure where it went.”

I tell him.

I picture him on his knees, sifting through bones, an echoing sound as one slips from his fingers.

I hope he finds the string of lights wrapped around my rib cage. One light left burning.

We hold hands as we head back to his apartment.

I wonder if he feels the tension in my palm.

Oh please, don’t hurt me.

My heart sends out a signal.

I imagine it, a red wire, poking my spine.

Attempting to keep me jaded.

We curl up on his couch that’s too small for two people. I brush my thumb across the coffee stain I left on his pillow.

His space makes me want to hibernate. To finally sleep.

“After the breakup, I just don’t sleep anymore.”

I said, explaining away the dark circles, the mood shifts.

I crawl into my cave, my head lying on his chest.

He tilts his head onto mine.

A furry bear, coarse hair, warm stomach.

I try to melt into honey, something sweet he can slip his paw into.

He moves from the couch onto his bed, tossing away his yellow pillows.

I follow, loose bones dragging behind me, leaving claw marks on the hardwood floor. White, chalky lines.

He’s watching me.

He sees the decay.

I can’t hide it any longer.

He opens the blankets and still lets me in.