he didn’t ever make her whole, but he was what her mama wanted, and i was everything her father was scared of. the first time she met me she looked me deep in the eyes and said, “you’re real, aren’t you?” and i sort of understood because people these days were plastic and we were just like them sometimes and i sat beside her and said, “yeah,” and heard her sob sob sob while she blurted out that she’s never fucking sure anymore

and in the late late night we would sit together on her bed and we talk about our childhoods, hers spent in dresses that felt like nooses, mine spent hiding from monsters in my head. we would fall asleep with our hands touching and our hair undone and lock the doors and say “you’re real, aren’t you?” every so often and i don’t think we meant to be friends but we were.

and one day i saw her with the boy who would be prince because he was a fucking stunner and he brought a smile to her lips all i could think was oh oh no oh no and in the late late night we went out into the rose thickets and she picked one and put it in my hair and i said, “do you love him” and she couldn’t answer she couldn’t

and her hips were like the rolling ocean and her throat was the white of the moon and her eyes were the blue of skies right at the height of noon and her lips always held onto words like they were poison and when she read my poetry it always felt like i was being touched all over my body and when she sang for me i forgot all my sorrow and we were two colliding star systems with no friction to stop us - i was at proms and parties and breakfasts and never happy until she stepped through the door and on some certain nights even when she had more important things i got her all to myself under trees and trellises and

we were in the empty kitchen laughing and eating a cake our waistlines would hate but both of us pretending like we weren’t living down the barrel of a gun and our laughter swelled to fill the empty places of our broken bodies and we were covered with flour and she was perched like a bird on the counter in this sleek red dress and i slipped my body between her legs to reach for another mouthful and when she cupped her fingers under my chin she kissed me like she was summer and i was the wind and i felt my heart pound like a fire alarm and broke apart from her and she blushed so deep red and tried to explain herself but i couldn’t handle it, i couldn’t, i put my hands on Her Majesty as if she was water and i was lost in the desert, i held her strong and kept her close to my heart and touched every forbidden inch of skin i had been holding myself back from discovering and we kissed and kissed and kissed and her tongue was hot and wet and her teeth nipped against my chest and our dresses got in the way so we shed them like layers of lies until it was just us naked, she and i, pools of cloth at our feet, faces hot and hearts beating so loud we expected to burn down the house. her whole body was so smooth and curved and i was captive and the way she tasted was only matched by the way she writhed and we stayed up reinventing each other’s ideas of heat until it was the early morning and we had to pretend we’d never done anything

and we took dance lessons together and i wore her sleek red dress and it reminded me of the way it felt when she held me and at first we pretended like nothing happened because it was all so complicated i mean i knew she was using me to stop being so empty but goddamn when she laughed i felt the world explode and one day while we were practicing i jokingly partnered her and she paused and pushed back my hair and said “i love you” like it was the last secret she had to keep and we melted to the floor like we were made of candy and her hands were like frightened ice skaters across my skin and she was so uncertain as she ran kisses across my body and she slipped her fingers up alongside the inside of my thighs and inhaled the way i moaned under her and when her tongue found me i forgot we were supposed to be well-behaved and i watched our reflections in the mirror as we ruined each other’s good intentions over and over and over again

and the days ticked by like this and we kissed when we were alone and were best friends when we were in company and her fingers knew how to find the best parts of me in a split instant and our showers were a sin for the waste of hot water and on some nights we just rested against each other and tried to explain away the tired and on some nights we were estranged lovers and on some nights we didn’t speak, just fucked each other so raw that it gave us something real to feel in the morning, cradling our bruises as war medals in a land of machines

and the days ticked by and before he proposed to her he came to me and frowned and said, “i don’t know what she’d like for a ring.” and i said, “it figures” and he laughed about it even though i meant each word to pour like poison down his throat and i helped him pick out a ring i would have been proud of her to wear

and i went to her room that night and said, “are you real?” and she said “as can be” and when i kissed her i couldn’t stop shaking.

loving her was loving the way the world turns and loving sunrises and loving her was loving harder each and every day, loving her was loving a wild animal. it was loving an open wound.

their wedding was beautiful and i cried.