I was with you because I was exhausted;
Every inch of my body,
Every second of my time
Was taken up with it.
It was a full-time occupation,
Moving about with heavy bones, heavy limbs and heavier
heart-
I had to devote myself.
I stared a lot at train tracks and out of train windows,
Lulling myself, letting myself get carried away
In the swiftness of it all, whilst I was so still
Not so very different from a statue.
I used to believe that if I was still enough,
If not a single inch of me moved,
Not a flutter of eyelash, not a stray spasm of the limb,
Not a breeze through my hair, not a nervous twitch,
No expression on my face, no shift to a more comfortable
position,
No reaction to anything at all,
If I was only still enough;
I’d disappear.
But I forgot that my insides could not be still;
Even when I held my breath for minutes at a time
To prevent the steady rise and fall of my chest,
My heart kept beating, blood through my veins,
Stomach rumbling…everything like clockwork.
There is no way to be entirely still…
But that’s what I did-
I lay still whilst you did it,
Pretended to disappear.
But I couldn’t be still because you kept moving, moving,
moving,
Inside of me like an invasion,
Like a weapon, like you were hurting,
Like you hurt me,
Like why did you hurt me?
Like why were you angry?
Like an awful disembodied object,
Like this could not be you, it couldn’t
Like this couldn’t be love, could it?
It was hard to stay still but I tried my best.
I was already so exhausted;
I couldn’t be angry, not like you were…
I loved you like my heart palpitations,
Probably more than that.
I loved you like splintered glass, dropped from a height,
Shards embedded everywhere, in every part of me,
I still find parts, sometimes;
So deep I hardly knew they were there.
The one thing I learnt from you is that it’s impossible to
disappear.
Completely impossible.
