RELATIONSHIP Poem: i love you and i’m horrible at it, by Sophie Briggs

he looks out over a city clouded with purple confusion
and the gold of the fading sun glints in his narrowed eyes

he looks down at me: do you wish i was impulsive too?
no, no, i backtrack, no. that’s a part of me i hate.

i explain: i used to have to make quick decisions all the time
and it stuck with me but it’s something i’d like to lose.

(actually i used to not have a choice most of the time
and now it’s a power i, too, abuse. this part i leave out)

well, did you mean it when you said you love me? or was
that just something you said in the moment, out of nothing.

i did mean it. and i pity him for it. it’s terrible luck to be
loved by me. i step on the glass of broken hearts each time i

try to walk. it’s laughable and terrible. love is far from me, love is
dangled in front of me and snatched away. my relationship

with love is worse than my relationship with him. i see his
hands shake and he can’t even look at me, and my throat

closes as his anxiety ows into me, although anxiety is not
something i naturally have (it comes with thinking before you act.)

we are dierent. he takes a measured breath:

girl whatchu running away from?

never him, always me. i love him as a stranger in my own skin.