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What Needs to be Said
Taylor Memoli
I.
That first glance. Even when half of your face was covered by a mask, I somehow knew exactly what it looked like underneath. A tunnel of others stood in between us, me being the chosen one among the other brown-eyed brunettes. But you were never mine, rather a gold rush in the California valley of a crowded room.
II.
I have never looked at another man the same way I have looked at you. Yes, I will lay in bed with them, but I will always catch myself looking up at the ceiling while they talk nonsense. I will think about you when I see the paint-chipped hole right above my pillow, reminding me of that small birthmark on the bottom of your right shoulder, and how it felt under my nimble fingers that late night last December. Your back muscles flexed under the colorful Christmas lights that shone through your bedroom window. You whispered so quietly as so no one could hear your words from outside the bolted-shut wooden door. The banging, the scratching, they were out there. Waiting.
III.
After the marks you left on my neck began to develop, the ones I tried to leave for you didn’t stick, only temporary while mine were ones I had to carry with me, thinking of you every time I saw myself in the reflection of a mirror.
IV.
“I should go”
“Don’t”
“But if I don’t, I never will”
“Good.”
V.
When you would lie, I would prop myself up on my stomach and look at you, your chest rising and falling ever so slightly, much like the needle on the rotating record, one of your favorites.
The record constantly spinning, always coming back to the same spot at the end of its rotation.
Margo Timmins filling the quiet space with a summary; Soul like a Lucifer, black and cold like a piece of lead/ Misguided angel, love you 'til I'm dead.