Happy Anniversary

One year ago we were in my bed in Tucson,
It was a Saturday,
and I turned to you and whispered, "should I make pancakes?"

And really what I should've said was "Good morning, I love you."

But there was something about making pancakes in the morning for someone that you loved that made me think of when I was six years old mixing batter with eggs and milk in a mismatched bowl early in the morning hoping that maybe my mother would leave her bed that morning.

You wrapped your arms around my stomach and I could feel your breath tickle my ear when you whispered, "Happy Anniversary, we've been together a year."

and something about that made my stomach hurt in a way that I no longer thought about the smell of pancakes. 

After a long pause I whispered back, "I love you," but what I really meant was 'please don't leave me.'

And I would ask that the next day as I sat on my bed watching you pack your suitcase, pulling clothes from the pile that had formed in the corner of my room. You had a tendency to leave your belongings strewn across my room, a shoe here and there, a jacket draped over my desk and I pretended that I minded but I didn't. 

Secretly I loved seeing my space fill with your belongings, it had a sense of permanence. 

"Please don't go," I whispered as I held onto you. I could feel you smelling my hair and I could hear your heartbeat through your shirt. I was crying and I knew that you could feel it in my hidden hiccups and the wetness of my face pressed against your shirt.

But there was something about a suitcase in the hand of a man that I loved that made me think of being six years old again.

"It's so hard for me when you leave," I told you. You responded, "I know."

And I could feel you starting to become impatient so I don't ask you to lay with me for a moment. 

It's been months since I last woke up with you in that Tucson bed, you haven't held me in awhile. That morning I only made you coffee, and we drank it from the same cup because all the other ones had been packed.  

Our cars are parked next to each other and as you kiss me against the door of mine I think about how you left me a year ago. How we kissed against this same car, or one like it, and how when you hugged me after all I could do was stare at my tires.

"I think my tire is flat," is what I told you. What I really meant was, "I don't want to go."

But it's over a year later and my tire isn't flat, and you've already been gone for awhile.

And months later from the last day we woke up besides one another when you asked, "are you breaking up with me?" What you really meant was, "please don't leave me."

And when I said "yes" what I really meant was, "I don't want to." 





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