UnSaid

I was telling Marcella how the other night

When I said hello

Even John Henry noticed you ignore me

The nicest guy sharpened his pencil to test you out

Scribbling your name into the crowd

You didn’t just greet him

But shook his hand with respect

That I guess you don’t think you owe me anymore

The story wasn’t half as funny after I said it

You’re not telling me something.

She said.

How did miscommunication degrade to non-communication?

I tried to explain that we had broken up

Not in the couple kind of way

because you wouldn’t let it get to that point

But there was a crack between us

a line we never crossed again

I told her about that night we went home together

making pit stops to make out at every statue on the way back

But I didn’t describe my wobbling feet on heels too high

Or your stumbling body on legs too long

how your giant hands were moths scattered into the night

I couldn’t catch midair

Or that moment clenching each other’s cheeks

whispering that we loved each other too much to love each other

We were avalanches

if we touched we’d tear apart the earth beneath us

But we tumbled into kissing a way I’d never been kissed before

Violently colliding

we came up to breathe three times

Before noticing the passed out Santa across the floor

How do I tell her how I clung to you in shadows

commenting on my slutty costume 
when I was not a girl who wore slutty costumes

Admitting I wore it for you

Reeling scales before recognizing your fins in the sea

How it hurt that you didn’t notice

You apologized but never told me I looked beautiful

I didn’t feel beautiful roaming into your apartment

Marcella I want to tell you about how when we got into his room

He left the lights off

And that I didn’t know to expect that

But I didn’t want to exit the moment

So I left pieces of myself in his doorway

I never got to pick up

Because I wasn't invited back

I didn’t tell her

when you asked me if I’d ever been in love

I didn’t feel experienced enough to answer yes

So I absorbed a girl who cut you

From an angle I could never reach

Thankful you didn’t bring up another she again

You realized her mind was not going to rearrange its wrinkles

Your obsessions with women who were never going to love you

While I was just the girl who tried to make you love yourself

I didn’t tell Marcella we were each other’s diagrams

Maps to navigate ruptures in our atria

You cartographed scrapes long faded into scars

crossing borderlines carved with a shard of glass littering the street

where I was locked under moonlight

I recognized my own sadness in your voice

when you asked if I ever wanted to kill myself

As I shook my head you whispered

I have

I reached for your fingers but they burrowed down my shirt

Laid in silence
Let you dig craters in my chest

Craving to be alone together

Bearing witness to each others wounds

I couldn’t explain how you told me to participate

So I haphazardly pulled off your shirt

Exploring not chest but demands

But when you suggested we both get naked

The no permeated my lips

because regardless of what you said

Undressing would reveal more than flesh

Amplifying the poor in our decisions

Crimson regret spilling across bone

I breathed relief the next morning

When we discussed that I was just seventeen

And you muttered

I almost committed rape

Admitting the stop signs I choked up

Sometimes halted motion more important than traffic

But at that point I was sober

And you were high

I was always sober and you are always high

And I can’t mention to her

the only reason I started drinking was to prove our compatibility

how once you were gone I started smoking

hoping brushing air through my teeth

would make me understand your power to evaporate

you’re gone but I feel droplets of your touch across my spine

my hair as thread for your fingers

you told me it was everywhere and you loved that

Back when we mentioned being doomed to fall for each other

Bare chest to chest glossed by daylight

I didn’t tell her when you stopped accepting my kisses

I continued even though your mouth tasted like hangover

trying to reawaken its lips

How you made it clear that you had things to do and places to be

And I was not invited

I froze beneath your covers

Tongue thawed when my eyes struck your skin

I like the way you look shirtless. I said.

I like the way you look shirtless. You said.

I exhaled I don’t and you shot me a look of pity

That bled out my capacity to tell you anything again

You bargained for me to leave

Saying the only kiss I’d get was one goodbye

I slapped on your sweatshirt and flip flops

Which you’d repossess that afternoon

For my walk of shame
Which began when I made you kiss me a second time

In a way that felt like you meant something

Sentiment I could trace between our tongues

Later you named it confusion

Do you want me to tell her

How this was just the first page of the saga

Where you’d write songs about me writing poems about you

Of the night your drunk tongue nicknamed me baggage

Or drunker you dived into me again

And when I drowned you in rejection

You followed me throughout the party

trying to tongue every girl in my vision

How we went from friends to lovers to enemies to strangers

to letters on a unprinted page

Or are some tragedies better left unsaid?