Smile, You've Won

And your lips were moving far too fast for me to catch everything each and every word must have meant. And we were waving goodbye, so long, I'll see you there, and I was climbing in my car and thinking of my bed and the way I'd like to pass out for days and never dream of waking again. And it must have been the way you didn't move or maybe it was the way you did.

You were a canvas I was painting deep inside my heart.

Never let me taste this again, and there are times you'd like to kick yourself for never figuring out what it means to swallow pride and rationality. I just want to wait for the dead of winter, and I want to taste the snow as it lands upon my tongue and think of the ice cold hold you had over me. My hands must have frozen solid all winter long.

"And you still don't know, but I found comfort in this bottle."

And it keeps me warm like long nights alone never could--they never seemed to care--but if you try and speak to me, I'll crawl deeper in this shell and deny all, I'll deny all, I'll deny all. I swear to God, I will. So never say another word. Please. And our bodies will stay intact. They'll never tear against one another, never be imperfect, never feel another goddamn thing. And you were resting beside me and asking why I said the things I did because we never meant so much of anything--we were everything if only for an instant--and neither of us knew it except for the times when we ignored it. I know I was nothing.

"And I'm so sorry for who I am."

So don't you take this back, don't you revoke a single fucking word because I'd rather slit my throat than never feel this because you will always be what I remember in my dreams, as disturbing as they always seem. And let's not forget the shotgun that haunts my dreams of every wedding playing in my head. Whether I'm the bride or bride's friend, you're always there, and I'm smiling, and she's loading the shells one-by-one, and I keep asking, "What the Hell does it mean to me?" And the words, "I do," are punctuated by the blast, and I awake always wondering if the shot was meant for you or me.

It never would have worked. You and I both know that. And maybe you knew it better than me because things would have turned out differently if I had my old self-antipathy that would have let me beg on my knees. But I'm too self-absorbed now to let stupid things like possibility ever play out. Our bodies will both go up like pyres into the night along with all the pictures of one another we wish we'd kept around.

"I've seen that look in me."