Threat

To my dear, sweet, gentle girl, the one who still believes in love, the one who eats like a bird, the one who still bleeds and wants to paint with that pain, I am so sorry to have woken you up. I have done a poor job of protecting you, and I should never have let you run free. To the other one of me, the one with the knives sharpened from clotted blood, the one in black and white, the one who bites, you are vicious and brave and I love you. And I am sorry to blunt your edges, but you will swing and you will cut me up inside trying to keep me from harm. I can feel you crying, screaming. And I hurt

This boy I found, he is dazzling and radiant, our adventures strewn across drafts of pages that will never be published because I don’t want to have to erase any more words again. And he tells me he loves me, though I can’t fathom why or how so quickly. He wants to dig, with a spade as vast as an ocean, and at one point I thought I wanted that, at one point I thought I wanted that mind meld - to be known and to be loved, I told Anj and Sab years ago, but now I think about all I do not do, all I do not have, and I am terrified that he will dig and dig and find the truth that I have spent years hiding - that there is nothing here. The love I feel for him is all tainted with fear. It smells like ammonia while I swoon. I am swimming and don’t know which way is up, which way is the air. The water is so clear and warm and gentle. I think I will drown. He sits with eyes closed, patient and content, waiting for me to talk. I have nothing to say. I so do not want to hurt him, but when I know that he will be my whole world and fear that I am just another small part of his story, I cannot be a fool.

So when he talks about his past, when he talks about the actions that I have always judged harshly in the past as his own, I feel the same kind of shame I felt when I was cheated on. He wants to me to sit there as he tells me all about the enjoyment of his past, how much he doesn’t regret it how much he enjoyed enjoyed enjoyed it, so that I really know him. But these are the chapters I want to skip, because I want to keep liking this book. I don’t even know if I am really judging judging him - it’s the past after all, isn’t it? But I do know that I worry about how people will judge me. He did that? He did all that? And you’re still with him? You’re fine with those things? And so I think about walking away. Just go. Just go. Just go. Because he wants a future. And some of the things he’s done, some of the things he thinks, he has this certainty about me, and all I can do is question it and the guilt floods in. He tells me he loves me. I tell him he loves everyone. He tells me about the things he’s done, I can barely even write about them, can’t tell anyone about it, and everything in me screams to tear out these pages. Close this book. I look at his face on the screen now and I don’t think about how much I miss kissing him anymore. When I’m reminded that he is flying to the city, well, if he came here today, I would not want to hold him, would not want him to hold me. And I’m scared this won’t fade. That a week will pass and he will be here and I will not be able to touch him. And I won’t be able to tell him why.

This is not what I wanted for you. For you to have to stomach things that make you nauseous. Drugs, sex, life outlook. My friend tells me to have a fail fast mentality. To make sure values align. To keep my standards high. And I wonder if this is it.

But my friend also tells me that he wants me to be happy. And I cannot deny that he made me happy. They see it plain on my face. My friend sees me flail every day with these unfamiliar feelings, good and bad, and he tells me change is good. Change can be good… sometimes. I went to dinner with Auntie Elaine the other day, I asked how Amy was. She used to tell me about all the things Amy would do. Now she just says she’s happy. I still haven’t decided if that’s enlightenment or if she’s just given up on the standards Amy could never achieve.

He will be so authentically himself that he doesn’t know time and place. And his inability to budge, his unwillingness to accept that not all of him needs to be out all of the time, I am terrified that I will come to hate him for a part of him that I love. He poses everything with such a positive skew. I think one day it might drive me insane. This lens of positivity. I find it unobjective. I feel like its just another fucked up kind of coping mechanism.

Things are normalized for him that are not for me, and that I don’t think should be. But really, he hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t hurt me. He hasn’t hurt you yet. That’s not fair. You know that’s not fair. If it comes up he’ll be authentically myself. I don’t understand why he feels like he has to. And if anything, the way he tries to be himself, will make people see a version of him that he really is not. Does she know that? Is she really fine with that? God I don’t even want to know his answer to this one. Vito has walked me around this harbor three times now. He warns me that this boy’s past can be an indication of his future. He’s certain of it actually. That this boy is trying to normalize this behavior to see what I’ll go along with or not. I don’t think that’s the case but of course I can never be sure. And this boy can say what he thinks he means now, what he thinks he believes, but that’ll change too. The boy will say I have trust issues. I will say I’m just not naive. Vito says he doesn’t want to sway my decision but it’s clear what side he’s coming down on right now. I never should have told him. Because if I choose differently, I’ll have broken my promise to you, won’t I?