Skin
I could stay hours drawing on your skin with my fingers, running them over your tattoos just so you’d know you have company for the night. Of course, I wouldn’t do it until you fell asleep because it would never work. You don’t enjoy caresses much. You fall asleep after sex or masturbation, and, more importantly, you fall asleep alone. It doesn’t matter who you’re sharing the bed with. You fall asleep when you turn to the other side and forget about the rest. I’m not criticising, since, more often than not, I find myself entertaining your sleepless nights. It surprises me how comforting your scent is to me. It didn’t change over the years, it doesn’t matter what deodorant, perfume or shampoo you use, there’s something about your skin that stays the same. I like how warm it is, but it’s about the only thing in you that is, and, funny enough, it isn’t because you’re a stone cold person. You aren’t, by the way. No, the chills come from where you are. You’re lost in a cold pool of reprehensibility and disappointments (I wouldn’t call them sadness, even if you do). You never give me your hand, but if you did it would be too slippery for me to pull you out of the water, wouldn’t it? I know you can swim, that each time I think you’re drowning you are just going deeper down, testing how long you can hold your breath. I should pull you out anyway and drag you around by the feet to give you the opportunity of a different point of view since you see everything upside down when you’re standing up.
(This is obviously just for the sake of this narrative. I could never hurt you and don’t give me that “unless I ask” crap. I can’t hurt you. Even if you ask.)
So, I can’t save you. You tell me that you can’t save yourself either. Honestly, I gave up this approach some time ago. I’d love to use a metaphor about now, but nothing quite fits this puzzle. Maybe because it’s not a puzzle, is just shattered pieces on the ground. How can you feel so much for issues that are far from you but be so cruel and indifferent to your own heart? You don’t have to answer that. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just want to do what I told you I would. I can stay here and hold your hand once in a while, be your other company. I promise I won’t disturb. I just don’t want you to be alone again. Misery in itself doesn’t count as company, no matter what the clichés say. Plus, she isn’t as cute to argue with.
