beauty is terror

there's very little that gives me comfort anymore. i woke this morning to find the sun staring a hole through the pillow where your head is supposed to be. it was heartbeat-warm, and I picked at the hairs that your head had left behind in some twisted love note, or perhaps abandoned prisoners of war. my ears were filled with a fuzziness, a solemn empty noise that bid me lay still and wait. so i did, and i thought about what you haven't been saying, and where you've been going while sitting, walking, laying next to me.

do you know sometimes i wake up at night with your teeth on my neck and i think, what next? and sometimes i cling to your body, collecting your warmth, and feel more alone than ever. when you look me in the eyes i wonder what you see that makes you so afraid. and when we hold hands i can feel your heart beating, and you grasp my fingers harder than you probably mean to when you slip off to where i'm not invited. when i look you in the eyes i wonder what it is that makes me want you here.

when we first met i was so full of you, anytime of day i had the feeling that the stuff of you was coming out of my mouth, my nose, my ears, the corners of my eyes. i would push you back further into my mouth with my tongue and swallow hard, and close my eyes tight, and plug my ears and my nose until i felt like i would burst with what you had created inside of me. i never told anyone, never betrayed you, never let them see how you seeped from my very pores and fell to the floor in a mock version of you that followed me around like a shadow. i pretended that you were with me when i walked down the street, when i was alone i would talk to you. i imagined that we did exciting things together that i never would have done by myself. now i think i liked the shadow version of you better. at least it laughed at my jokes, and stroked my hair when i was ill, and let me jump first. when we did all of the same things i had imagined us doing it was if you were pretending to care, your skin betraying your words, your eyes betraying your hands. do you know that your jaw clenches when you are lying? do you think that i'm still not noticing?

i've memorized you, i can see the patch of skin beneath your left ear, the lines and pores and shadows from when your hair obscured the light. i can draw on paper the moles of your back, the veins in your arms, the tattoo on your chest. i can prop up this pillow next to me and create you into it, and hear your voice talking to me, even more wonderful than your real voice sounds. we can talk and laugh and i can feel my heart jump within me, and my cheeks burn and my eyes glisten. and all of this is what makes me sick, because i want you here, but i don't want you.