Cockroaches lie in the bed where we make love.
They like the warmth between you and me.
But these pests can’t sense the mess we’re in—
a nuclear war between our hearts and heads,
as one of us frolics in one too many beds.
You still insist that it will all play out,
that everything will be fine,
and that these menaces will soon see
that our bed is not their home, they don’t belong.
But after months of silent arguments and perfectly timed exits,
I have to wonder how many times will a single heart break,
as we say goodbye yet again.
“The last eight times I said I love you, they sounded like apologies.”
I have never felt for anyone what I feel for you—
chills in the late afternoon when I wake up to your eyes,
lips that touch so delicately, so beautifully.
Falling asleep amidst electricity,
sparks flare up as we lay down together,
constantly evolving from who we were into who we are.
And here I am left wondering
if I will be able to feel anything after you leave
this May.

I want to be with you when the rain falls on the windowpane, the pitter-patter soft enough to keep us from crying but loud enough to keep us from forgetting. I want your hands on my body, ever so gently and ever so present. And I’m gonna need you to hold me, because as the months roll along into the winter, my days they grow darker and my nights become colder and if there’s one thing I know its that hands around my waist, lying in my bed, are the only things that are going to keep me from slipping this December. I’m gonna need you. Your voice lingers in my head like my grandmother’s favorite song, the one she used to sing sitting on the porch with her needles. She sang that tune like it was the only goddamn one she knew. You’re the only one I know. And I shudder at the fact, because before I knew you, I thought I knew it all and now, it comes down to it and I find out that I knew absolutely nothing. You are my compass, and I don’t mean that romantically. I mean that in the sense that you have shown me that there is a whole world I’ve been missing and I’ve never had someone like that in my life. I’m gonna need you. I’m gonna need you to pin up the stars on my ceiling when they fall down and I’m gonna need you to pull me out of bed and take me for a walk. Smoke a cigarette with me. The smoke out here with you will be so much thicker, instead of light and fleeting it’ll be heavy and lingering. It’ll dance in my mouth and escape through my nose and settle in my hair, on my sweater, on top of my dashboard, overpowering the sweet stench of you. I’ll feel like my soul is leaving a little with every drag I take, and I’ll think that’s okay because I’ve got a lot to lose. I’m just gonna need you to help me pick it all back up when it’s over.

The thing you need to know about me right now is that I haven’t been smiling in my sleep. It’s been six cold months worth of tossie-turnie nights, where no matter what I do I always wind up staring at the ceiling, waiting for you. Knowing that you won’t ever be back is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to know.

The thing you need to know about me right now is that I can’t see straight. In about an hour I’m gonna have to go out back and probably puke up a lung because I drank too much again, darling, and I’m sick and I’m sick and I’m tired of all this s*** and I just can’t wait for it all to be over.

The thing you need to know about me right now is that everything I had left in me I scratched out on the inside of pizza boxes and old diner menus in the hopes that they might somehow find their way to you. I left my love on ripped up pieces of paper and in the corners of the books I gave you last autumn. I know you haven’t read them yet.

The thing you need to know about me right now is that the last time you had me waiting this long, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal and left before you could even begin to make up another excuse. You probably think that this time I’ll be here when you get back, but you’re wrong. Ten more months of blind waiting just won’t cut it.

The thing you need to know about me right now is since we last spoke my eyes have changed color and my hands have grown weaker. My hair’s a little longer and I lost all the bracelets you gave me. The way you left has made me realize what we had was never what I wanted.

Alex swore to me that there was nothing going on and that I was just being paranoid. He told me jealousy was an ugly color and that I was wearing it far too well for someone who had said they trusted him. I tried to make sense of what my heart was feeling, but when I stormed out of the living room that night, it wasn’t because the movie was over, it was because I was afraid if I had stayed any longer I would have seen him touch her like he used to touch me.

He followed me out to the meadow. Lightening lit up the sky and lingered for a moment, waiting for the thunder to paint over it with blackness, like it knew that he and I were standing in the middle of it. He rolled up his RedSox pants in fear of getting them wet and I rolled my eyes at his pettiness. We hadn’t been the same since we got to camp. All year was fine and then suddenly our summer of love turned into a summer of resentment and jealousy. The tetherball swung around its pole and the mud caked thick at our feet. I couldn’t look at him, or I knew I’d breakdown. His black eyes had always dug into me, prying me from what I was actually feeling into what he wanted me to feel. I saw a future in those dark eyes, but I knew it was just a vision.

I started the screaming match, and he ended it with a stolen kiss.

When it was all over and we had moved into the barn to take shelter from the downpour which was our relationship, I told him that this was really it, that I couldn’t stand by while he moved on right in front of me, that I knew those sideways glances at her were the beginning of something more, that the friendly hugs lasted a little too long and that the hand stroking was the last straw.

“We’re just friends!” he screamed over and over again, realizing each time he said it that it wasn’t true. The last time he said it, he started crying. I rolled open the barn door, tears in my eyes, but numb everywhere else.

Twenty minutes later I went back out to the barn and threw his blue Brazil sweatshirt on the ground, the one he had given me after his team won the championship just months before. I was mad for the boy who ran around the field with the cup in his hand. I was mad for the boy who sprinted to the sidelines and picked me up in the air, kissing me hard and long, dirt and sweat dripping from his black curly hair. The last few weeks I’d been wondering where he’d gone. He was sitting on the Ping-Pong table, soaking wet and crying, his hair all gone now because of the lice scare. I wanted to hold him and tell him it was all right, that his baseball pants would dry and that I still loved him, but I couldn’t take care of him anymore. I couldn’t be the mom that he needed or the father he wanted. So I walked out. I walked out and cried in Anna’s arms and fell asleep feeling like I’d done the right thing.

I figured he’d be fine and when I saw him kissing her the very next day. I figured he’d be fine six months later when he transferred high schools. I figured he’d be fine when he asked Kristen to marry him.

I was so fucking wrong.

Have you ever pictured your lover in the arms of another? Felt the pang of reality that strikes in the pit of your stomach, the tips of your fingers, the arch of your back when it isn’t you they dream about? Have you ever found a battle wound that you hadn’t given, a mark left by a war you didn’t know they were fighting in someone else’s bed?

He and I sit on my bed, looking at our own computers, fighting through another night of postponed work and tired eyes. We don’t speak to each other. We don’t even look at each other. It used to be that nothing that could stop me from staring into his auburn eyes and laughing at his pig nose ring, but tonight? Tonight we sit trying to ignore the resentment that builds our walls back up, the very same walls we’ve been tearing down for months. The very same walls I’ve been ignoring for years.
His phone vibrates and then the whole room goes silent.

I know he went to go see her today. I knew it before he kissed me hello. He’s got a mark on his arm that wasn’t there when we woke up this morning. He’s got perfume on his neck that I’ve never smelt before and a smudge under his chin where she must have rested her lips. I did my best to not be visibly upset. I held him close to my chest like I always do, kissed his forehead and tickled his eyelashes like I always do. I even kissed his lips, still swollen and parted, when he pushed his forehead against mine, like I always do. But it all just feels wrong. She’s been here.

He looks at his phone, smiles, and then texts back some charming response with a loving emoticon and sets his phone back down on my bed. He looks at me and sends me a single air peck, a sign we’ve accidently made to check-in with one another and make sure that we’re both okay. I immediately look back at my screen. No peck back.

It vibrates again and I’m out the door, a smoke break I say as I hurry out of the building. I know he won’t follow if I’m smoking, it chokes him and he hates it. Guaranteed alone time.

Hours later, when we finally succumb to sleep, work unfinished and eyes almost fully closed; he will infuse the right side of my bed with the scent of his cologne like he always does. He will tilt my chin up when I lean on his chest and kiss me softly like he always does. And just before I close my eyes for the night, he will tell me he loves me, like he always does.

But this will be the last time.