You, me - love
Relationships are mostly as strong as the both parties. My father taught me to scratch the backs that scratch mine, to strive to attain happiness, to compromise but never sacrifice.
It's this sacrifice I think of when I remember my time with you. Resting my head against your thigh, staring at the television screen, blurred images dangling across, telling stories I am too engrossed in my thoughts to follow. It's this sacrifice I think of when I think of my time with you. Creasing at my sides to fit into your idea of normalcy, . It's this sacrifice that ensures I wear your words on my skin like an ill-fitted shirt; that makes me incarnated of your ideas.
"Your friends can never know we are together."
But this was what "Together" meant to me: Waking each morning beside you, hoping it would be the day you realize that maybe, just maybe "together" was not enough for me. Fixing my teeth, washing away stray spittle from the sides of my mouth, breath mints, tamed hair. Together meant just the right kind of leash around my neck but never too tight to make me yours, or you, mine. Together meant right here, right now, in the moment.
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So when you would turn to lavish your eyes on the body of another girl or send me photos of people with what you considered "better features," I would laugh and tell myself "Hey, we're just together," because this would soothe me, it would drown the spiralling fire that awakens inside me, and I would smile a bruised smile and reply, "Give me a few months, I would be just like them."
Because that's what you wanted, Them. So you settle for me because Them often existed on Instagram and girls you are too supercilious to approach.
But sometimes cracked walls cannot withstand storms; storms like, "she cooks better than you," "Why can't you be more like her?" So we wobble, give into the storm that is both leveling and uprising. We fall into the storm because most times, it is the only thing that nourishes our roots and ensures we rise again. Because even Love sometimes breaks us when we fall.
So we lie there in your sitting room, staring at the television screen, your fingers grazing my side, waiting patiently on something of an ending....
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Nonetheless;
I do hope, in the future
that when my light falls out your mouth
you can pick it up and put it back in
that when I am broken into languages
you can piece me together and form one word
Love.
Hate.
Care.
One word.
that when I begin to undo myself to fit into you
you can make out the wholes in your own becoming
that you would strick with your lies
while tending to unharm me.
I do hope, in the future
that when I break, you can look at me
and still call it bending....