Arable

You sat with your legs crossed and found it perfectly acceptable to claim the prime square meter of real estate in front of the fridge for your receptive strength. But I didn’t blame you; it looked like you needed it.

I caught myself staring at you longer than I should have, and I wouldn’t have batted an eye if you opened one and asked, “Come to see the freakshow?” You kept your humor, even if I knew all the voices inside tore away with pitch talons.

What a fight they must’ve been putting up.

You were in a good mood, I could tell, but still, everything is relative. Your face struggled under the weight of what tossed around inside your mind. I saw your eyes dart behind their cover, wrestling with confusion, caught between the urge to laugh in the face of adversity or to cry and succumb to the boulder that slumped your shoulders forward.

But you were never the one to give up, were you? Tears streamed down both sides of your winter-decorated lips, meeting at the center of your trembling smile, only to trickle away and spill on your jeans.

If I had asked, you would’ve said—with such conviction that I might have left the room, heart fluttering, convinced you’d be alright, even with tears streaming down your face—“It wouldn’t have been any fun if it was easy.”

But I didn’t want to ask. I knew you’d try to be strong for me, so I watched in silence, like the shadows gathering around you. And I dodged the specters that flew from the corners of the room to come for you. They would have torn me to shreds.

Things have begun to shape up for you now, your wholehearted smiles have shed their tears, and your back is all straightened out with the puff of pride, you even rage taller than me, which to my surprise—I thought I had gained an inch on you, guess not.

Today… I feel sick. Even if my throat could belt out Grace Kelly, I must have caught whatever you had back then. Not from my own struggles; I haven’t earned this kind of pain yet. How can it be that the two of us came down with the same sickness, when you were the one locking eyes with the moon, whispering, “better watch out,” while I kept the couch warm, drawing the curtains against that same moon?

To be honest life feels like an eternal Sunday, and the two of us have two time zones of our own. 

Maybe that’s the sickness I have—a Sunday without a Saturday. At least it feels good knowing I can tag in, carry this tar in my chest for a while, so you can skip a little lighter.

If there’s any relief in this—anything at all—it’s that I can stand here and watch while you pull free. At least that’s real.