it took me years to grow a heart — You Know How You Do

i don’t say i love you when we end our phone calls because you don’t know what to do with it so it hangs in the air between us, this unwanted thing.

it’s a wonder how easy it is with everyone else.

m. is waiting for a cancer diagnosis, is easier for you to say.

i know if i say it, i could tell folks i’m healing generational trauma, but it’s easier to think it, to whisper it when you’re not around.

to write, i forgive you, it’s not your fault, this is how i love you and hope it makes its way through the ether and into your bones, your blood, where it feels safe to hold.

i want to stop with concrete answers because stuff is just so murky. life is murky and intangible and unreal and weird, something that hangs in the air for a second and then it’s gone and it’s ok because i knew it happened even if you didn’t see it.