of cupboards and pencils and things

Did you know, that when I was little, I was the rat girl? My teachers cast me for the leading roles as runaways and tattered dress wearing strays in all the school plays. I got picked on sometimes, but mainly, I just blended in with the wall. I was always a good chameleon. I used to spend hours or days alone in the cellar in my room with my markers and pens and fresh notebooks, which I used to fill with imagination and melodies and stories which I could tell myself later when I tucked myself into bed in an empty house. I whistled to the birds in the sky, confided in the cat and conspired with the neighbors dog. And I still do. I learned to fall in love with melancholy because it didn’t abandon me and the loneliness etched itself into my skin. I cut it with razor blades in clean lines under my breast to hide its evidence and it bled. It still does, rolling down my cheeks. Perhaps I could explain to you that inside I’m hot lava, leaking from my always volcanic heart.
Your face is one I want to whisper to. To say, I love you. I fucking love you.
But I reach across you for another piece of apple and cheddar, my head held high, while I still wish you held me with tightly clenched fists, that we held each other and that for once, you didn’t let go. I still do.