Are we all just fucked then?! Never getting each other, always hurting each other, always dropping off to sleep convinced in our fictions, sewing up the ends in our stories about ourselves, each time our disguise is blown off.
This is why with him it feels the way it does. He apologises for hurting me and I do the same, before it's been said in words that that hurt. He hears what I cannot say, and I've known. And we devise wordless ways to see each other and to communicate.
That day he kept searching my face, fearing an accusal, and his ready defense shut me up further. I realised it was bad timing and that no words would come out of me anymore. And I shook my lowered head, and then a half unexpected half to defuse the moment chuckle escaped me. And he relaxed after that.
Later, annoyed at the world, I let some unguarded annoyance at him out as well. As if he were my age, as if I'd known him forever. He apologised for having assumed something that wasn't.
He saw more of me in those unplanned moments than I could have ever shown him.
And then days later when he smiled at me as I entered, catching my eye as I looked up half scared to enter, I broke into a wide smile and soundless laughter, at myself and at him, at us and all that we had said and not been able to say. And we stood there like teenagers, smiling into our eyes, saying It's nice to see you.
And then I went and spoiled it all...
All over again. Because I saw her watching me, and her son said she had been unwell after I noticed her sore throat. And my heart went out to her.
I hurt my sister today. Because I thought she was hurting our father with her words. And because I thought it was agreed between us that she did that sometimes and I thought it might help to point out when. But apparently she does not agree. And so she lashed back at me. And I'm left wondering what's left if in our closet relationships we are so callous and misunderstood.
