Rigid Still

It’s 1am and I found you on an Irish Jewish ancestry site
googling your name when
my computer contains only deleted information
and my profiles all block any access
it’s such a pain logging out only to have to re-input passwords
just to see your stupid face
you don’t change your picture ever
and I know how good your privacy settings are
it’s almost as if you wouldn’t love to know I’d-
thought about you 4 times today
cried about you once
and googled your name twice
(only because I closed my tab, but that’s besides the point)

I found conversation
‘I love you’s’ and ‘I love you too’s’
followed by the first time I tried to leave
and you convinced me nothing my body could offer was enough
to make you respect who you had
and that if you waited long enough
my devotion and loss was enough
to tie me to your waist
a child on reins
constricting her room for thought

I think what’s the worst about this sadness is it’s coated in fear
every second I loved
I love still
and I love immobile
unable to remove myself from anything

How can I be happy for what happened
when it keeps me up
can’t watch my favourite film
but wearing the t-shirt means I don’t have to look at it myself

how did I love someone that hated me this much
denied any sense of expression
spent months trying my hardest not to scare you away
when instead
on our 5th date
I should have touched all your books and turned your hats inside out
so you knew I wouldn’t spend the next 7 months
in line
by your side
without you at mine.

Christ, I swallowed up so much for fear that you wouldn’t reciprocate
should have known you didn’t need my lead to tell me your thoughts
had they existed I’d have known them right away
like how my drawings lacked skill
and my art lacked structural meaning
or how I dressed like an 8 year old-
you were always so specific.

Like when you’d insult me but call me Liz
I was pretty but I was a Frog
Good morning but good morning Rat

When christmas came and I cared more about every second your present hadn’t arrived
than I cared about my family being ill on christmas day
or having to work christmas eve
or spending boxing day in bed
or the fact it got to April
and you refused to open the box I gave you
with a tiny gold train wrapped in a sweet wrapper
since your mum threw yours away when you were tiny
I understand to a degree
it might make you feel bad that you’d got 4 presents
and I’d got none
but ultimately the fact you wouldn’t let me
permeate any further
with my attempt at sentimentality
left me rigid.

I want to call you right now
and force you to open that box

but I remind myself
you should have known the person you lost
and if you don’t by now you never will-
waking up sad we’d fallen asleep too abruptly
I wanted to have half-heartedly stroked your neck as you'd started to snore.
I’m not this person who can love anymore
there’s a boy I see and I don’t care if he texts me
we date once a week and I don’t miss him in-between.
You feature in my head more
and that makes me feel sadistic
when I’m being offered sweetness and have been offered nothing
but I loved trying to make nothing more
the sweet struggle of trying to get you to call
that adorable friction when you wanted to go to bed, but 5 minutes of your voice
wasn’t enough to make up for 3 weeks of missing it
So angry to be without but immediately so grateful to have that I lost control of what I’d been missing
until I missed it all over.
2 minutes after you hung up.
I can’t mention her, I feel sick
still
and I don’t understand because I did the same
but the thought that you could be
and it isn’t me
and she might feel like I do
and be like I am
I’m not significant or singular
I’m coated in fear and she’s got everything I was after.
Maybe she’s satisfied with it.
Maybe she’s everything you’d tried to make me
she dresses like an adult
and draws proficiently,
nothing too wacky, but perhaps the odd satirical cartoon.
She probably doesn’t do an art degree
maybe she even works.
I wonder if she lets you tread on her throat
can she speak or breathe or barely
I can’t tell if I feel sick at the thought of your dick in her
or whether that correlates with the memory of your dick in me all too closely.
I learnt this one from you
shutting off your brain when you don’t want to address something.
Trouble is now I can’t heal.
You sliced me from toe to chin and
I bleed thoughts of you each day
pushing out the poison
I can’t separate my love and hate
just yet
to be able to understand why I did both
and why so uncontrollably
but your loveless care still tears irrevocable gaps
and your pointless restraint still turns me red
I lie and remember what you’d feel like behind me
and hate you for even beginning to define me.