ON MAYBE, POSSIBLY, POTENTIALLY, PROBABLY BEING AROMANTIC Lauren Goldstein
(i always fall out of love before i’m supposed to fall in love)
i’m supposed to call you my dragonfly. i’m supposed to take those gazes we both feel and lock them into my bones, unable to think of anything but your eyes blinking with my pulse. i’m supposed to write about your freckles feeling like home to me, about how my heart leaps out of its veins every time your fingertips brush across my skin. the world tells me to see you as the color red and i force myself to try. all i can see is green.
i was drinking my throat raw in firewhiskey the night before. i was laying on top of the boy who failed to make eye contact with me after i was laying on top of him, on a couch
that made my eyes itch. i wake up at 8:00. i need water but don’t have time to change my skirt. we drive to the Painted Hills. the green weeds dig into my legs and you say you
feel sick. i say, i’m not okay, and you say, damn it, i really liked you. i tell you i never want to return to the Painted Hills. we drive back two and a half hours in silence.
i don’t feel my heart because others strengthen it. i feel my heart because it forces itself to be felt, because the scars in my skin would be much deeper i didn’t. i have met many soulmates and i still fall asleep with my arms wrapped around my stomach, my eyelids hugging themselves shut. my heart is a part of me. it will never stop attempting to forget the darkness.
i notice you across the room in chemistry. i catch you looking at me, and am thrilled the day i gain the courage to ask how you broke your wrist. i talk more when you’re in the background. we stare at the stars on your ceiling and i say, i can’t do this. you lock yourself in your room to make music. i read you my favorite poem on a bench and a fallen green leaf turns over. i run into you at the tea house a year later. you spill water over yourself. i will never forget your skin touching mine.
i’m lonely because my meds limit the level of my happiness in addition to my sadness. because my mom slept in my brother’s bed that one year. because she told me i’m more important to my dad than she is.
because i have seen what “love” does to human beings and the color red is far more frightening than beautiful to me. because i am physically unable to feel the color red, regardless of how much fear it causes.
my palms hug the clear glass mug filled with #67 tea. my legs clothe my chest. in my ears are your headphones, and in my ears i listen to the song you wrote for me. it’s not warm. it’s a dream, but it’s
not pleasant. you say you love me on a white cloud and i fall through it. i say we shouldn’t talk the rest of the summer. you say i’m your best friend and i forget how to listen to myself. i’m home
now, on my roof, a cigarette in my fingers so i can fill my lungs with something other than air. i think about the pine trees in front of me. i always wanted someone to write me a song. supposed to call
the tips of my hair are green. perhaps one day they will be red.