I’ve become caught in between the window and the window sill — half-in and half-out (like you used to be with everything). The window frame is crushing mine. I can feel my ribs nearing tessellation.
You’re calling over your shoulder to me, “You spread yourself too thin.”
All I can think about is whether or not my ribs could be folded on an angle where they would fill their own gaps.
You’re calling over your shoulder, “You look like an emaciated child with all the hollows in your cheeks. They’ll tear and you’ll have holes for a soul. You spread yourself too thin.”
And it’s true that perhaps I have pulled myself too far, but never enough in any direction. I want to tell you that I’m starting over — starting with being enough. Starting with pressing myself into any emptiness.
You’re calling over your shoulder but I don’t hear you this time.
On the pavement underneath the window stands the boy to whom I owe all of my apologies. He’s laughing and he’s told me (without a word at all) that he wants me to climb down. He’s laughing and his mouth is a gaping black hole — perfectly black like the ink that sits in pens that have never been used. I look long enough at the place where his rippling laughter is coming from to stop seeing faces. There is just a dark abyss and it wants me to climb down.
Should I look back over my shoulder? Should I look back? How (do) I dare to look anywhere else.
