the thing is, you’ll never be better, but you’re good enough for me.
how to run away and never get caught
- stop caring about everyone. try to forget what your mother’s voice sounds like. don’t leave a note. don’t miss a single soul. after all, they are the reason you’re leaving.
- remember that you can’t run away from your loneliness any more than you can run away from your skeleton. it lives inside your bones, and it’s coming with you.
- belong. belong, finally, somewhere, wherever you wind up. adopt the local accent when you’re buying gum as gas stations and slur your speech (already drunk, 8am) in colloquial slang at the woman slinging burgers at the only diner in eighty miles.
- hide only in plain site.
- tuck words of reassurance in your back pocket. reread the creased, coffee-stained paper under suburban streetlights at dusk and remember why you are there.
- find a good partner in crime. hold their hand tightly, and don’t let go. together you are invisible, invincible; too broken for anyone to call back home.
i’ve been trying to write you a love letter for years, but i’m afraid i’m not good enough.
x
dear *****,
look, i would love to be in love with you. i’m pretty sure i am, when we’re on the phone and night and i can hear you smile when i call you beautiful. you’re so fucking beautiful. the words “i’m so in love with you” are so fucking beautiful and they slide off my tongue and into your ears so easily. god, i love you so much. there i go again. here we go again. i’m so in love with you is only half of the truth. i’m so in love with you, but you’ve always loved me more. and listen, i’m so fucking broken. the truth is, you’d be so much better off without me, because no matter how in love with you i am, i’ll always be just a little more in love with myself and her and my bio teacher when she wears her hair down and that squeaky-voiced gummy bear girl and alison brie and anybody with blue eyes. the truth is, i’m so in love with you, but i’m afraid it’s not enough. look, i’m sorry, but probably not as sorry as i ought to be.
half truths, II
i don’t know how to write love letters, at least not to you, but i’m afraid that’s what this is.
x
dear *****,
look, i think you’re beautiful. sometimes i think about what it would be like if i could call you something more than mine and it makes me cry and hide under my blankets. listen, people used to fall in love with me, but i didn’t care about those people, i cared about you. the truth is, your name ends in lie and isn’t short for anything. the truth is, you’re my least favourite spelling, and i’m sorry. that beautiful pregnant spanish teacher i used to always talk about has the same name as you only hers is only three letters. i used to think about her at night before i fell asleep sometimes and the only difference is i knew she’d never love me back. i used to cry myself to sleep. i don’t remember the first time i wanted to kiss you but i remember wanting to swallow knives every single time you told me you’d never feel the same. i don’t remember falling in love with you, but i remember falling in love with her, and i’m sorry. look, i told you this was a poem and i was lying, but so were you.
half truths
this isn’t a love letter. i don’t know how to write those, at least not to you.
x
dear *****,
look, even if i don’t write your name everyone will know who this is for. look, i don’t care. i met you a long time ago and i never meant to care about anything, then. i wasn’t alone yet. people used to fall in love with me. that sounds like a lie, but listen, when i first met you i didn’t have to babysit my own ego. i had other people to do that for me. the truth is, your name ends with lie and i don’t know why i ever expected anything else. the truth is, i never meant to care about anything but i did. i don’t remember falling in love with you but i remember being jealous of every boy you told me about, and even more of the girls. i don’t remember when everyone else left me but i remember the first time i wanted to swallow knives when you told me about your wild friday nights. look, this isn’t a love letter and it isn’t beautiful, but neither are you.
© 2012–2013
