I think I’m going to make it through Christmas without responding to your annual text.
It usually comes when you get home from the Ivy League where you are probably teaching as many classes as you’re taking now.
You remind me of a home I haven’t been to in a long time and I wonder if it’s the same for you.
But I’m trying to focus and leave the past behind me and not pull at threads which I know drag up shit
And I already know that you hurt, it doesn’t matter how much time or distance we have I still remember the way I loved you all hot and new and unlike anything else that has ever happened to me.
It’s just the way you talked to me I guess, and the fact that I wasn’t supposed to have you which has become an unfortunate hook.
You remember I’m the asshole.
Instead of leaving the past this year I feel like it’s chasing me down. Maybe because I’m trying to stand still.
It keeps walking up on me, old years in a new place, or a familiar text that digs into the soft part of my brain and uproots uglier things.
I should be grateful for the distraction, I’ve slept dead with my self-righteousness, aren’t we good at that.
Either way I’m not your homecoming this year. I already pulled the skin off self-indulgence.
