The Trees Grew Because I Bled There

I suddenly regard them, not as if they were human beings, but rather as if their bodies were the undisturbed archaeological sites of ancient tombs—the secrets they must protect in their darkest recesses, the unrevealed confessions lying dormant inside them like the jeweled remains of long-since deceased Pharaohs

They laugh.

I don’t.

Instead, my eyes perform a makeshift surgery on my husband—from the broadness of his shoulders to the narrowness of his tapered waist. I split him open in my mind and watch his organs spill out like rotten pieces of fruit. Rummaging through the jewel box of carnage I’ve arranged in the center of his fileted chest, I search him for the moment it happened—the moment his love for me became an obligation. The horrible moment it no longer was a necessity and instead became a responsibility.

Whether it resides in the marrow of his bones as yellow as amber or whether it’s woven into the latticework of his motorway of arteries, the moment exists deep somewhere inside him. Sadly, it’s something my hands cannot locate no matter how assiduously my fingers comb through the shining sculpture puzzle of his internal anatomy.

However, it’s a sadness hidden somewhere deep inside him I cannot help but recognize

Each person we love turns us into the strange thing we become

I think that’s the most dangerous part about being human—conceiving nice ways of saying something truly terrible.

I suppose all living things are. Humans are just able to put words to it. We’ve invented euphemisms to dull the way an affliction sounds, but not necessarily how it feels.

Not everybody in this world is out to hurt you

“I’ve never hurt you,” he reminds me with a gentle hand around my shoulder.

“Parents aren’t supposed to hurt their children.”

His head lowers as if in prayer. “Sometimes they do.”

To be so cruel even when she knows our time is precious

She deserved so much more than to be loved by a monster like me