1. I Asked You What You Wanted, In What I Imagined To Be An Exhausted Sort Of Tone, Worn Out From Trying

1. i asked you what you wanted, in what i imagined to be an exhausted sort of tone, worn out from trying to read your mixed signals and jumbled communications. you are like the radio-waves sent out by the sinking titanic, all screaming and static and sound and oh my god all i want is to decode your fucking noise but i keep coming up with a million different possibilities, each becoming more horrifying as i move down the list. in response to my question you said one word. ‘you.’ but if all you wanted was me you might make it a little goddamn easier to be yours. 2. you’ve tried to convince me you want me in ten thousand different ways, your voice crafting the letters into silky phrases that float in my ears and strangle my brain like a seductive python. but i’m afraid of snakes so i shoo those beautiful words away. i know my mind likes to lie to itself, work into frenzied anxieties and use my own twisted insecurities to dig deep gashes of uncertainty, but i can’t help but think in that one logical part of my brain still left, that if you really wanted me to know you gave a shit, you’d find a way to show me. 3. i know a girl who says she knows you up and down, would swear on your soul like her mother’s grave. when i asked about you she gave me a cocked head, a smile like throwing fuel on a fire, like she knew it was gonna hurt. i saw her eyes go all soft on me. because fucking everybody knows i’m in some serious kind of caring for you. and she told me you can’t bring it in yourself to CARE about people that way. and i get that. i thought i understood that. but then you pulled a carpet out from under my feet and swore up and down you wanted to be with me and now i just keep thinking about what she said. about how maybe you’re only telling me you want me because you want to want me. 4. but you touch me with this insane gentleness, look at me with a softness that i cannot bear to let myself question, because i swear to god it’s the way i look at you. how could you look at me that way without feeling like i do? and i’ve felt this sizzling between us for months now, always managed to convince myself it was one-sided but now you’re coming into my home and convincing me my hopelessly hopeful suspicions were true, jesus christ, how can i not cling to your every shining word? 5. you smile like a warm august day but sigh like a bitingly bitter january storm. sometimes i feel so close to you and it’s like bathing in a warm pool and when we’re close like that i’m always positive it’s real, that it won’t ever end. but sometimes you are ice, you are so hard and cold and far away from me. i reach out to touch you and my fingers sting, turn bright red in the flurrying air.

five reasons i’m confused (m.g.t)