by Jessica Kraker
I watch you bleed out in bed on a Thursday night as your phone blows up with messages from that girl you think you aren’t seeing. it stains the sheets, the forest green being overtaken by that thick maroon. it has me humming, “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” and wow that’s ironic, as I take in the scene from the window seat you always hated. Because you couldn’t fit into it with me. my god, who knows how much sooner this all would have played out if I had just told you I was glad you couldn’t share that space with me, glad we just couldn’t fit.
Honesty would have been better than watching my words make you bleed. They lash out at you like barbed wire against skin like the time we snuck into the park and your leg got caught in the fence. 30 stitches but you said it was worth it just to see the stars baby. I wonder if you still believe that. your blood drips onto the floor as you get up and grab your jacket – a gift from my father because of course he loves you, of course – and tug it on to cover the scars, our relationship has left you looking like a veteran, like a gangster, like a victim. I am sorry to make you hate me in this moment, but I’m more sorry for letting you think you could have me to begin with. all I do is make people bleed I say and I’ve bled you dry my dear.
you shut the door without a glance back as I watch from my window seat as your tears hit the pavement. I hope you go to her tonight and finally let yourself be happy. that’s all I ever wanted. how foolish of me to lose sight of that. you turn the corner as a car pulls up to our, no, my place and she grabs my attention when she rolls down the window. A smirk is plastered across her face, but her eyes are sad as she tracks your departure. And then she looks up at me. and all the things I said to make you leave, to make you happy, my mind whispers, feel so worth it. you always said to fight for things, for the life you want. I’m sorry that means not fighting for you.
I watched you bleed out on a Thursday night because we were too young to love the ones we were with, but old enough to know that we deserved more than someone who makes us bleed, who makes us lose what life we have left in us. it’s Friday morning, we find ourselves in different beds and I am hungry and she eats with me as we sit wrapped in my window seat, and I hope you understand that it’s not giving up when you choose to start again.
