(I) Miss Me More
I will bend and bend and bend until I am broken. A rubberband overused into an oval, silly putty spread across your fingertips, Gumby limbs stretching until they dislocate. I would do anything for you. I’d sleep on needles just to be in the vicinity of your body.
I was never the one who loved more.
Until I met you.
**
I am a killer. A street fighter. Heartless even. “Name one time you made a decision that was unpopular,” they prompted me during a job interview.
“How long do you have?” I asked with a smirk.
I’m not one who fears the tough shit. I live for the squirms and the sighs and the outbursts, even better: the argument. I’m even keel, a logic wizard, I can remove emotion from anything.
Well, at least I used to.
**
When I met you, I never expected it to last. Neither of us ever pretended to be built for longevity - together or alone. You loved drugs and Burning Man, and I loved overdoing cardio and eating Cheez-It’s for dinner. Somehow, we were always finding our way to one another. It was simple - no strings attached, make believe, a fantasyland whimsical tale. We didn’t get close, we just existed next to the other. You were the easiest thing I’d ever done.
Until one day, you told me about your family. And my heart leapt out of my chest before I could super glue it to my sternum.
You were human.
When we had sex afterwards, it felt like a person, not a business transaction, not a machine. We connected. I unraveled one, single loop and spent years trying to stitch it back together.
“I love that about us,” you would say when I would leave you alone and give you your space even though I wanted to reach across the couch and fit my body underneath your arm. I could never even bring myself to move an inch. I didn’t want to run the risk of showing my cards - of letting you know I cared.
**
I’m not someone who gives affection. I am someone who is sought after from afar. I am someone who ignores your texts even if I desperately want your attention. I am the queen of delayed gratification. I can take care of myself.
“Be butter,” my friend Lee told me, extending her arms and waving her chest, “you don’t have to melt, you don’t have to be liquid, but everyone loves soft butter,” she clasped her hands together against her chest and closed her eyes for a moment, exuding a smile.
So, when I was with you, I tried. I softened - just a little bit. Put my head on your chest, sat on the same side of the couch, put my fingertips against your shinbone.
And you let me.
Almost.
You’d hold me back, just for a second, push me off gently to get up, but I’d have moments, no matter how fleeting. Next time, I’d try a little longer. Move towards you a little sooner. I could build up the courage, pick the right moment this time, one that could last.
“You never make the first move,” you said to me.
“I’m always making the first move,” I said, but I am always holding back.
“How? Name one time,” you pressed.
“I just...” I trailed off, “exist.”
**
I exist differently with you. I don’t kiss your cheek. I don’t take your clothes off; I don’t even try. I don’t interlace my fingers with yours. I don’t call you, because I have nothing to say.
When you call me, I pick up first ring. When you touch your arm to mine, I don’t dare move, even if it’s the arm that comes out of the socket at the slightest hint of pressure. When you hold me, I feel like I could die in that moment and have lived a life fulfilled.
When you don’t sleep next to me and I ask you why, you tell me I wake up too early. I steal all the covers.
You sleep in the room across the hall and wake me up in the morning an hour before my alarm. The covers are all pulled to your side of the bed even though it’s empty. The next time you climb into the bed on the other side of the world, I follow you, say, “Please don’t do this to me,” but you’re flipping on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, laughing, muttering, “Do what?”
It’s already done.
**
The last time, I am in bed with the door open, waiting for you to spill into the space next to me. I fall asleep eventually, and when I awake, my body is facing where you should be, my chest in forever waiting.
I walk across the floorboard, wondering if you left. I softly place my palm on the door handle, but it doesn’t move. It’s locked.
**
I should have never been butter, I think to myself, as I lather blackberry jelly on toast. I throw away the jelly even though the jar is almost full. “I’m like a cat,” you explain, as if that explains it, “I need my space. I like to sleep alone.”
“I am always alone,” I tell you, “even when I’m with you, I’m alone,” I make the coffee, because you never do anymore.
“I just am used to missing you,” your face is hard, “I WANT to miss you.”
Then miss me, I want to say.
**
When you decide you are going to leave, I am not surprised. I am always waiting for you to leave, because you are already gone. I almost forget what your eyes look like, because my visions are always of you glancing away, averting your gaze. You make hamburgers before you go, and we are out of ketchup so I cry into the brioche bun instead. You don’t notice, don’t see, because that would require looking at me.
“This movie seems to really hold your attention,” you comment, as you orbit around the living room, packing up your things.
“I’m just trying to keep it together,” I say, pushing the air around me down, because it is engulfing my surroundings.
“Keep what together?” You ask, crossing the space between us and sitting on the couch.
“Me!” I shriek and burst into tears.
**
I am liquid, I am remnants of movie theater popcorn. I am I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter.
You look up at me in horror. To you, I am Kokum, I am Sal. I am exotic and hard to find with a melting point of forty degrees Celsius.
“What is this?” You ask me, and I don’t know how to reply. I spit and sputter and wave my hand around.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, see,” I wipe my tears and smile, familiar to the face you know.
You look like David Blaine’s audience after he’s finished a trick.
“I...I don’t want to leave you like this,” you say, but you do, and you will, we both know the truth.
“No, no, no,” I am laughing, I am calling upon the muscles in the sides of my face to dance their way up to my ears.
You stand up and wrap your arms around my back. I hold my palms against my chest and yours by default. I inhale too sharply and my vocal chords aren’t ready for that amount of power yet, so I sigh into your body, and beg to retract my tears so you don’t have the melted evidence against your T-shirt.
“Drive safe,” I say, as I walk you to your car, even though I hope you can’t make it home. I hope you drive to the end of the street and pull over on the side of the road.
**
But you’ll clear the 120 miles. You’ll pull into your garage and think, “It’s good to be home.” You’ll climb into the bed you made three weeks ago and sleep straight through the night.
I’ll be left to lie next to the hope of the outline of you.
And you, you won’t miss me at all.