xiii · death reversed
he said
a poem by victoria rodriguez
do you remember? he said.
i said, i do. but it’s too bad.
what’s too bad? he said.
i said, there are two hands on my shoulders, pushing me beneath the surface.
that is too bad, he said.
i said, in what world do you think that’s normal?
he said, in a world where two people love each other so much that it feels like drowning.
i said, but my resources, my voice, my future— do they even matter?
he said, i’m at a point in my cycle where i understand that, in just a couple of hours, i’ll look at you like you have ten heads.
i said, i know. my time will reset too.
he said, can we just live in this for as long as we can?
the fights, the making up, the trigger, the fight, the making up, the trigger, the fight, the…
i said, i want this to be my life as much as i’ve ever wanted anything.
he said, what part?
i said, the beginning of our cycle— before the loop trips, before the words become uncommunicable, before my voice is siphoned away.
i want the softness.
he said—
he looks down before he says, you know i love you more than anything.
i said, i know.
and you know, i don’t even believe in god, but there are days when i pray, with tears in my eyes, that this will all just go away.
i clarified: i don’t always mean you. sometimes i just mean the audacity.
he said, will you wait for me while i get better?
i said, in another life, we’re normal and in this life, i’m learning why
it isn’t going to.
he said, loving you is not normal.
i laughed, and for the first time in four days, i emoted something other than sadness.
i said, loving like this is written in books, depicted in movies, but i don’t think i’m equipped.
he said, what do i do? do i... do i shallow down my fears for you? do i cover a hole in my heart when another one will reopen in another place?
is it... is it me? am i the one that’s hard to love?
i said...
i paused before i said, think of yourself putting your hand deep in the sand on the tide of the ocean.
the deeper it goes, the more shallow it becomes, because every reaching tide comes in and surfaces your hand even more, takes away the sand, and takes away its mold.
i push my hand in deeper to get the feeling of the warmth of the water, to maybe even feel a shell underneath a fingertip, something real.
but the tide always inevitably comes and removes more sand, as it should.
that’s what loving feels like with you.
he said, that hurt. i’ve never been called an insecure tide hole before.
i said, i’ve never described loving someone so much as an inevitable ending.