It’s a strange sort of suffocation
To leave a love living in my lungs
That exists more easily than taking a breath
Inhale, respond to something you said yesterday,
exhale to hear your response and
interrupt expectedly
To exclaim that I agree with the claim you haven’t yet made
You rant about your calc class
We unknot the unformed argument underlying your exasperation
into an elegant thesis on gender in this century
We know we cannot explain it to anyone else adequately
But we might remember it forever
Once a man at a cafe on Spring told me
He forgot where he bought his favourite rings
They were now a part of him
The engravings embedded into his fingers
Then the silver bands encircled his soul
In the same strain I can’t remember when I learned your birthday and met your mom
All I know
Is that I hold the words you mispronounce & the stories you tell strangers
As if they are my own
I unknowingly memorized the melodies you tap on the dinner table
So well that
I can almost hear the jazz that resides in your brain
I think that’s how I know that I know you
I have spent my best years
Watching your hair inch towards your hips
Coarse ebony curls familiarly fried & flattened on Sunday nights
While I paint my nails,
Knowing that on Monday morning
I will beg you to keep your hair curly
&
You will say maybe next week
&
Tell me you love the curve of my nailbed
&
I’ll reply by saying I have no idea what that means
I want to scream when I walk into a coffeeshop
& I see two girls a little older than us with a clear comfortability which disagrees with the opposite outfits & laptop stickers advertising schools 3,000 miles away
Explaining new psychological strains imposed by men and friends that the other doesn’t know
They pore over stories they have clearly already told over the phone and gossip about the instagrams of those that they have not seen in years
Brick by brick they try to bridge worlds
They are almost able to
(but not quite)
You can see it in their eyes
I can’t imagine updating you
On anything bigger than what I listened to on the subway ride to school
Or how I spent our hours apart on a Friday night
Please don’t start drinking decaf
That would be enough to kill me
When combined with the heartbreaking practicality
of knowing I need to slow down when telling you stories
Like I do with strangers
Because you can no longer fill in the gaps
When I forget to explain a name
I am trying my best to ignore
The glaring reality that you soon will no longer know what carb my mom is currently cutting
&
my new favourite album
&
why I last cried
We will never share a life like we do now
Splitting lunch everyday and weekly sleepovers ordering chinese food & chatting with my dad & unpacking the same incidents over and over again in the bed where I first read Harry Potter & waking you up with coffee in the morning
We grew up together, but really we grew around each other
We learned our pet peeves by almost killing each other over not turning the lights off &
Our love languages by bringing each other coffee on the busiest of days
I know we will bring what we’ve taught each other to our separate worlds
But what if we can’t be us without everything tying us together?
I know that we will see each other soon enough
I will say I miss your curls
&
You will go on about my nail beds
&
I will make you coffee
We will order chinese food & explain all of our updates as my dad enters and exits the kitchen because he still just wants to be included
We will fall asleep re-examining our old issues in my childhood bedroom
&
It will be comfortable
&
wonderful
&
full of love
Same,
same,
but different
