eventually

ph: buenaventura marco

When you pick me up my favorite songs are always playing. You tell me not to speak, wanting to explain what is going on. You ask for me, but I just can't.

I've always cared for you. Always loved seeing you, hearing from you, fighting with you. At the same time, however, I've hated you. Despised you more than any person I know. You made me hurt in a way that I've never experienced, you embarrassed me, you left me. To this day I cry when I think about that night on the beach when you yelled at the ocean and left our relationship to the waves. I laid in bed during that summer, weeping for reasons I don't even know. Crying for what happened. I had never felt that before.

Getting your letter this summer nearly ripped me to shreds. It was an apology but I cried as if the break up had happened again. My letter back was full of pent up resentment, and I think back now that it may have been too much to be said in a letter. When you read it you wrecked your car. I made you as mad at you had made me. That was the point.

Eventually summer fades and we all come back to school. Seeing you the other day made me livid again. You didn't deserve to even be in the same place as me. You didn't deserve my glances, you knew that. We fought when around each other, people complained about the tension we left in the air. We didn't care. We've never cared.

This time last year we tried this the first time. You came to me, convinced me of the importance of our relationship and I unwillingly agreed. Soon after, everything fell apart. As you come back to me I tell you I can't let you in. I want to. I want to be the one to hold your hand, I want to walk under your arm and feel small, but I can't.

You told me of what you've done this year to keep me close as we walked around the gardens at night. That poem was beautiful, the flowers that I thought were from a friend, the night you came to see my play--all unnoticed. You have always been there and I had no idea. Hearing you say that you want me and only me feels like a dream. I had no idea that I had the ability to care anymore, but I still can't let go. There is something holding me back. Whether or not this will happen again, I can't know. Jumping in head first brought me more pain that I ever thought imaginable. I'm here to say that I am willing to eventually walk up to the shore and ease into that sea where we left us.

Right now, however, I'm not even close to the water.