"Hi..."
"hello"
"so... how's the weather down there?"
"fine"
Is it dead yet, darling?
Our relationship has been grasping, clutching, clawing for air for months now. I never thought I was going to say this, but maybe it would be best to go ahead and kill it.
It started imperceptively... who knows, maybe it started from the moment we met. I compulsively hide from people, and so do you. We neither of us got the point of trust where we could share everything with each other, but we believed we'd shared enough to breathe with.
It just kept getting pared down. There was a word I couldn't say to you, then there was a word you couldn't say to me. With every new word and every new rule, we tightened the noose.
Then I told you to stop apologizing to me. Upon reflection, I'm not sure I should have done that.
You trained me to stop asking you how you were doing. Since that is how I typically open any conversation... unable, in my peculiar way, to talk to anyone without knowing what mental state they are in beforehand... I was left bereft of an ice-breaker. Speechless.
Now our conversations are a mockery. I hang in a stupor, muzzled, corked, absolutely unable to say a word that will reach you unsheathed by the clingy gauze of hurt between us. The words gather in my chest and press painfully against my breastbone. And you... you... I no longer know what it is like for you. Our relationship is heavy, unconscious, unmovable. I don't know how it gets any air at all.
Maybe it's time to kill it. I was never one for letting things die slowly and in pain.
It bothers me that this conversation will never take place between us. I should have told you this while there was still enough life left to take action.
My heart is screaming and screaming...