I wish I was stronger.
As I sit beside you it is only more clear
to my eyes that I am full of imperfections,
flawed,
like the tiny red stone of your ring.
It catches the light when the bright,
loathsome sun of summer glares down upon us,
another reason for why I hate summer days.

I feel as though I've been left behind.
How long has it been since you last saw me?
Have I changed much?
Did you even recognize me?

You say that I have grown colder.
But I know you only accuse me of this
because I don't look at you
when you speak to me, and sometimes
my mind is in another place
altogether,
so your words float through the air like
June bugs and disappear before they can
reach my ears.

You look pale is not something I want to hear.
It reminds me of how much I hate this sun
that is boring down into my skin and, with its
profane light, erasing the memories of snow
that once fell upon me and melted forever
beneath the surface of my thin epidermis.

I wish I was stronger.
Or smarter, because I don't understand what
you mean when you say that you have left
me behind in more respects
than one,
when you say that I remind you of a ghost.
Everyone tells me that and it makes me shiver,
makes my skin crawl as though a real ghost,
a transparent apparition,
has sprung up even in the bright light of this
despicable day to perch upon my shoulder
and hiss and moan into my ear.

But you don't seem to like it when
I fall into my own world like that
and see and hear things that are invisible
and soundless to you.

You want me to speak.
You've been watching me and waiting.
It's so hard to open my mouth.

Where should I begin?
All the words flow together in my mind, a crowd
of sorrow and fear and anger and all the things I
always wanted to say to you but never had the
courage to,
because I'm always kicking myself when I'm
down and refusing to speak my mind.
I don't want to hurt you.

Why has it become so difficult to understand you?
Why have we grown so far apart?
We've been sitting here for so long now,
and still you are waiting for me to speak.
You used to laugh at me and yet you expect my trust.

Your hand suddenly falls upon mine,
feeling too warm against my cold skin,
and I want to pull away but I can't.

The way I always used to feel with you...

Please don't do this,
not again.
I don't want you to touch me but at the same time
I felt a little jerk inside my heart the moment
that I look down and see your hand there,
laying so silently upon mine,
trying to encourage me to speak.
I wish I was stronger.
Don't you understand that every word that falls
from my lips takes a part of my soul away?
No...
Don't do this to me.

I wish I was stronger.
I wish I wasn't so miserable as to shake like this.
I thought I could escape it all.

There is the distant sound of an old car being started
and it sinks into my consciousness slowly and lightly,
barely absorbed,
because at the moment I am distracted
as I look at the hand I have just used to wipe my eyes
and see that there are tears there.