Seven
Dear Atlas,
I’m looking out at the moon and I want to pretend you’re here with me. That it’s you in my sheets. That I can see your tired eyes and you’ll wrap your arms around me.
I feel like I’ve cheated.
More so than when I had another man inside me.
The night belongs to you.
My sideways view belongs to you.
My shadowy confessions belong to you.
I don’t like him beneath the sheets.
I hate the mess he left, the wrinkled confirmation he was here, even more.
But I’ve decided that memories are armor as much as they are wounds.
Because,
The night belongs to you.
To us.
So whatever he does in the night, it can’t hurt me.
Because,
I remember your sideways face.
I remember your shadowy smiles.
The way you shift on the mattress when something hurts your heart. Or how the mattress shifts beneath me when you slide on top. The perfect weight of you, or your perfect strength and heat. Your groan that echoes in my bones and lungs.
I know it’s been less than two weeks since I left, but it feels like ages. Too much has happened.
I’m worried about you.
I’m worried about your sad smile.
I know you’re not reading this, so I’m hoping you can feel it.
Please don’t give up.
I’m not giving up.
I’m safe…we’re safe. As cruel as he is, there’s a line he doesn’t cross. Maybe because he thinks he has a real chance with me, maybe because he knows you’ll always come—I feel you here. A ghost watching me, watching him.
Or maybe he doesn’t cross it because he’s not all evil.
That thought haunts me the most.
The thought that keeps seeding that briar inside of me, giving it water and light.
When he left me, I stayed awake watching the stars give their wishes back to the sun. I couldn’t stop wondering as I looked out at the billions of vanishing stars keeping us apart: why do so many love stories keep princesses locked in towers?