You know who did this, you say, and even though that seems to go without saying, I know now that you expect me to do something.
He’ll get over it, I say, but you shake your head and you don’t look me in the eye when you respond,
No. He’ll get over you. He won’t get over it.
I know what you mean this time, but I pretend not to. I tell you to come home with me, that you’ll feel better there, safer, and you look at me like I’m a fool.
I’ll call him, I tell you. I’ll talk to him.
But I don’t, and you know it.
I go back to your place the next morning and you’re packing up moving boxes. I tell you that you’re being crazy—that you just have to wait for things to blow over.
People like me are always waiting, you say, dropping plates wrapped in newspaper into a box. People like me die waiting. To feel welcome, to feel safe. I won’t wait here. You won’t turn me into a ghost.
I go home, convincing myself that you will follow. If not now, then soon. Until then, I will go on orbiting.
In my bedroom, I turn the thermostat down all the way, and I strip, and I wrap my arms around my knees and bow my head, my hair hanging down to brush my shins.
You are soft and warm, I tell myself. You are the world.
A cold world. A world inhabited by only wicked things.
I will not let you die here. ♦
16 | Psychopomp Magazine