i didn't really leave you. you thought i did because these fingers crumble under pressure and sometimes i'm not as strong as i'd like you to believe. i am not the clawing or the growling or the ferocious strength it takes to break cities apart and move oceans into tiny sections all with equal proportions just how the old texts would put it. i wanted to run from here, but only because i had lost the legs to stand up straight and i wanted to so badly, i did. these are excuses, i know. these are responses to words you never asked but i always knew were on your mind and i'm sorry i never offered anything sooner. i pressed whispers into your ear that i knew you wouldn't make out all the way because maybe if it wasn't solid then it wouldn't ever have to be broken. cowardly, i know. i wanted to write them on parchment and fold them into your hand but they crumbled between nimble fingers and never made it all the way through. we'll get over this hump, we always do. we'll have shinier moments and you won't have to be so scared.

i want to talk about nice things but i can't. there is too much boiling and brewing and nothing ever gets solved, merely pushed to the back and stored for a rainier day. light showers become dangerous thunderstorms and everyone cries because there was no warning. that's all you ever want, right? warnings. we don't pay attention to warnings. we don't listen to that which has created everything we depend on because we've learned to depend on a false sense of stability that never was really ours. i can't build mountains for you and i'm not going to try. i'm not going to pat your back when the knife wound is still fresh because i'm not going to risk your blood staining my flesh. you want to believe otherwise? try me. i dare you. but don't ever say i gave no warning.

there's a brighter side to this and no i won't say what it is because jinxing is for sports teams that always lose and i for one am a team unto myself when it comes to this. i'd like things to be cleaner and simpler than the mess i always tangle myself into and i'd like for you to never notice when good becomes bad and bad becomes worse, but you will and i like you better for that. i don't deserve you and not just in the way i don't deserve quite a lot of things but in a way that makes diamonds shatter below careless fingers and unseen oils deforming vintage gowns. i need you to wait for me to be better than what i am today and if you do i'll make promises that aren't even empty. i'll be good for you and you'll be proud of me and these days of dramatics will be put behind us. for the most part. right now we're children spoiled in confusion and who's to say tomorrow we won't still be the same?