sjsprWriting

He surprises you by saying, You never used to look at me like that, and you look at him.

The way you’re looking at me right now, he says, and you open your mouth, but nothing comes out.

You want to explain. You want to tell him that you can’t look at a person the same after you’ve seen him dead, and you’ve seen him like that. You still see him dead in the worst of your dreams: his empty eyes are the reason your nightmares wear his face.

You’ve seen him dead, and you couldn’t tell him, so you only said his name.

You meant to say, I’m sorry. You meant to say, I’m a fool.

You see him bruised and battered, and you don’t tell him, I carved your name into every monster I met. You see his reflection next to yours in the rearview mirror, and you don’t say, We can save each other. He sits besides you in a bar and you don’t say, I’ll always want you to come back. He stands up to go and you don’t say, I wish you'd stay.

Instead you say, So this is it, and he looks like he agrees.

You don’t tell him that this is how you look at someone right before you let them go.