Flowing back to you

I think we learned how to hurt each other long before we learned how to love each other. Whatever we say, no matter how cruel or quiet. We always find our way back, dragging ourselves through the same bruised friendship, where love sounds like hush-toned insults and "apologies" come too late. Some people fall in love we fall into each other's wounds unhealed, then reopened, and always bleeding just beneath the surface. We said things no one in their right mind should. We meant them just enough to scar. Somehow, we still came back as though pain was the only language we ever spoken correctly. Mostly, I think we hurt each other just to feel heard. Hatred runs in our blood for the silence between us is so loud, we need to break it. Either with bruises verbal, emotional, whatever works. There’s no big breakdowns only these quiet intense moments nobody dares to be the first to break. Routine of pretending again is getting exhausting. We sit next to each other like nothing happened, eyes bruised, our hearts hang low. We’ve learned how to live inside our wrecked pathetic bodies without ever trying to leave. Cause why would we leave the comfort, to face the unyielding world outside. I remember that night clearly in my head. He told me I was nothing he wasn't angry nor shouting. In a quiet hushed whisper in the middle of our conversation about something else entirely like outer space. I remember not crying or showing any emotions like I have in directly agreed. We didn’t talk for three days after that, he showed up at my door with a half eaten bag of chips and his mouth half full then spoke, "Wanna go walk somewhere?" I said yeah like I wasn’t still carrying those words around like broken glass in my throat. He once called me a burden in the middle of a joke. Everyone laughed except me and him. He had his cocky smirk .We sat under a bridge once, our knees bleeding from the heat wave of running. He looked at me and asked, "Do you ever feel like if you disappeared, no one would look for you?" I told him yes he didn't speak. I texted “I hate you” one night. He left it on read. The next morning, he asked if I wanted to skip school and get food from the old bakery down on 5th Street. He once said I talk too much when I cry, I try not to cry in front of him. One night, I told him I didn’t want to be here anymore. He said, “Same,” and lit a cigarette.

QUINTIN

Saying I love you feels loose. Empty, Like something you say just to fill space between the damage. She does this thing she looks at my neck then my eyes. When she says it her eyes betray her. They're full of sorrow, like she’s mourning the person she used to be before loving me, meant surviving me. I just don’t want to break up with Alya she wouldn't be here taking my shit. The thought sits there, like something rotting under the floorboards. I shift my weight, spoon circling through melted yogurt I’m not tasting anymore. She’s still looking at me. Waiting. She stopped waiting for apologies a while ago when Alya fell onto the pavement i pushed her laughing at her joke. She woke up in the hospital, smiled at me i left the room as i saw her awake. I reckon she’s waiting for something worse also known as honesty. I suspect that's the scariest part about her. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say anyway. It sounds wrong the second it leaves my mouth. I never enjoyed apologizing. Practiced. Like I’ve said it before the neighborhood fire. Alya lets out this small breath not quite disappointment. Something tired. “You never do,” she says. She doesn’t say it to hurt me. That’s the problem. If she snapped, if she got angry, I could push back. I could defend myself, make it loud, make it messy.

What we've been taught and what we're good for. She just accepts it. At a glance this is who I am, it is because she knows me too well. I get frustrated when she tries to know me. Seeing right through me. As though this is what loving me costs. I have resentment not against Alya. She makes it look so easy to stay, it's never easy to stay. A car drove by somewhere behind us, tires hissing against the road. Someone inside the shop laughs. “You don’t have to keep doing that,” she adds, quieter now. “Doing what?” Her eyes don’t let me get away with that. Does she have to be so emotional. I shrug instead, because that’s easier. “It was a joke, Alya.” She nods like she expected it. Alya finally looks away from me, down at her hands, turning the plastic spoon between her fingers like she’s trying to decide what to do with it. “I know, it just feels like you're hurting me cause you're trying your hardest not to cut anymore” she says. And somehow that hurts more than if she didn’t believe it. Silence stretches between us, thin and fragile. I could fix it. I know I could. Just say it right, mean it. Tell her. My chest tightens like the words are trying to claw their way out, but they get stuck somewhere halfway up. I look at her again. Really look this time. And for a second, I see it who she used to be. Someone lighter. Someone gentle and caring that someone who didn’t love me. “I love you,” I say. It comes out quiet.

Alya shakes her head “that won't get you out of the cage” “why are we doing this if you'll be cruel, that's all you'll ever be” I don't answer her cause I know what she'd say. I know myself and I can't do better, that's not what we were taught to be. I don't know why she makes my heart feel this way but I do know that I haven't felt this way in a while. I want to hold onto this feeling at least until it gives out. At least till it tightens in my chest holding me, softly and warm like my mother's arms in 2019.