i push her to the back of my mind. if i touch the bruise, it hurts.
i can't tell you when it happened– if it was junior or senior year of high school– but i can tell you that i am different after sobbing in my bathtub for two hours when i found out that i am my own unreliable narrator. love has to be earned. keep everyone a breath away. don't let them in, but let them think they're a card carrying member to the club of you and all of your glittering personalities. i'm sorry i want to murmur so often under my breath but someone taught me when i was fourteen that sorry is the song of the weak so i bite my tongue and forget it.
they're all right; you don't forget your first heartbreak. but when everyone has the love songs and the hallmark movies to get over it, i am lost in a swirling hurricane of fury and lost girlhood to a person who i swore to love until the day i take my last breath. friendship is a sour taste in my throat so i pretend i'm in love with everyone and pray to forget the first best friend i've ever had. i miss you, if you're reading this. i'm mad at you too, if you're reading this. please let me follow you, if you're reading this. please tell me you're okay, if you're reading this.
and the final story goes like this: at the last concert i saw, i left swearing that i was going to trick the drummer into falling in love with me. my friend watched me with amusing eyes. why do you always have someone you're in love with? she asked. i frowned. aren't you always looking for your next romantic spiral? i asked.
what's an insecurity called if it was once a habit that you loved? what's a habit called when it's something i do to keep her close after she's walked away?