6.13.18

She asks if he's called.
As if it's a normal occurrence.
As if I would want him to call.
Little does she know, this question breaks me a little bit more.
It's been seven months and it still hurts me.
I can go maybe a day or so without thinking about it,
without thinking about him,
or that night.
Sometimes I just catch a glimpse of my skin out of
the corner of my eye
and it rushes back to me.
Other times
I try to be intimate with someone else,
and suddenly their hands
are his hands,
and it scares me
but I can't say anything.
It holds me back from forming relationships
I so desperately want to work out,
it's become just another reason
I'm a failure of a girlfriend.
In the split second
it takes for her to ask me
that question,
it comes back to me.
And suddenly I'm there,
that car,
that parking lot,
the single light,
the neon glow of the time
that was running out.
His name mentioned has lit the flame,
his touch sets my skin on fire
in the most destructive way possible.
Flesh oozing,
dripping down my body
like the freshly melted
wax of a candle.
I wish I could be bones with nothing left
to touch.
Nothing left to hurt.
She doesn't get it.
Most don't,
but I'm not willing to explain.
I don't want to explain it to them,
I don't want to walk them through that night,
step by step,
until we get to that one point.
I don't want to be invalidated,
I'm so afraid of the judgment,
the fear of not being believed
is terrifying enough
that I'm pushed into silence instead.
So I write
until the words make me choke
because it's the only way I know how to
tell this story.