inkskinned:

like, you didn’t like my tv show. so i said, okay. i didn’t talk about it once you told me it was stupid and sort of immature. i stopped watching it after a while even though i actually liked it. but you were right, you know? it kind of was dumb and it kind of was immature. i liked the characters, was all.

okay. we never went to go see my favorite movie. i had to promise you sex before you agreed to see it illegally downloaded. we slept together four times before you actually went through with your promise. you kept pausing it to check if it was done yet.

i confessed that you didn’t like my writing to caroline in the form of a poem. she wrote at the bottom “dump him.” i thought about it. but who else is going to love me if i get rid of you, you know? you make me feel like i’m not an open road, i’m the entire broken system of infrastructure currently plaguing our nation. like being with me is taxing, see. aren’t i funny.

but i can’t bring myself to stop caring. maybe i have too many issues. bringing you shit i like just so you can shut me down. we’ve talked in circles about it so much i feel dizzy. you make me feel needy just because i’m trying to share my life with you. is it normal for a couple to be like this. to have one person just utterly unwilling to participate in the other person’s interests.

the other day some really cool things happened and i didn’t tell you. the other day i read a book and i loved it and i didn’t tell you. the other day i remade myself and needed you and tried a million new things and had a whole life and i’ll never tell you, because what if this is another thing you don’t have time for.

we go to another one of the concerts i don’t like but you do. we spend time doing your activities. i don’t ever want to do poetry in front of you. you’d just make me feel like i was making a mistake. you’d be the one in the audience i’d be doing it for and you wouldn’t be smiling. we go to places i don’t want to eat and see things i don’t want to see and pretend we are happy. you promised me so many times that you’d start trying that i have a secret drinking game.

we get home. you take off your clothes and we have sex i don’t love and then it’s over. we don’t talk about anything. i shove my stories under my tongue. you’re on your phone when i’m talking. you’re too tired to hear about work. i write a poem about how sex can’t fill the space where intimacy used to be. i send it to myself. you don’t look up. you don’t even realize i’m writing.

“I missed you,” you say. complain when i’m getting dressed but don’t ask me to stay. i wonder how you can miss me when what you know about me is shrinking. when all you know about me is my body. when the deepest parts of me are a black ocean and you’re not even buying a boat. you act often like i’m making this all up. 

hi you won’t read this poem but if you do this is why i am falling out of love with you. hi you don’t care but let’s, for right now, pretend that you do.