Ten of swords

You told me you have loved me in all of your lives. And I believe you. I believe you more than I ever let on. That you only judge me to protect me. You watch the ground for glass; you know I love to walk barefoot. I never have to watch the sky for thunder. You always smell like rain on grass on concrete. I seep into you willingly; I always want to be a part of you. You fumble at my metaphors reluctantly, knowing I am not in my words, not in my lies. You know every step to my conclusions, the twisted roads to my decisions. You are a tree, large and inescapable. I play unattended among your roots. And when I feel the pressure of despair, you fold me among your leaves. I am never afraid when I am with you.   

When you left, I wasn’t quite sure who I was anymore. I had grown so accustomed to your smell, to the way you talk, the half-smiles and the creases in your skin. I could predict every laugh. Hardly anything ever made you laugh. It was the small things – an unfinished sentence, the irony of our incredible sensitivity, the routine scattering of my mind. I could talk to you about anything. And I always knew what you were going to say. The beauty of it was that I still wanted to hear you say it. With a lisp, without hesitation, with every confidence that I was likely to completely disagree with you, but love you anyway. I loved the rain, you loved the sun. I loved the ocean, you loved your pool. I loved you, I am sure that you loved me. I am sure you didn’t want to leave. I know that I didn’t want to let you go. I still haven’t. I still carry you around like a trophy. Like a crazy athlete who doesn’t want the world to forget what she won. Or who she was. I can still see you, the way you were before you started to fade at the edges. Tall, warm, strong, inescapably beautiful. Stubborn. I sometimes wonder if you would still be here if you hadn’t been so stubborn. I’m a Gemini, of course I confuse you. But I was a Gemini too, and I never tried to confuse you. It was one of the things we laughed about. Two twins. One half of the other. Does that mean I am incomplete now? Such redundancy – I haven’t felt whole for 4 years. I cant believe its been that long. A twinless twin, the ultimate irony. Not to mention the fact that we looked nothing alike. Not even when you began to shrink, to fold into yourself. Like a cigarette. But it was me catching fire. It was me in pieces on the ground. You smoked the entire time. Laughing that it wasn’t what was going to kill you. And you made me quit. It was me who had chain-smoked our entire childhood away. Me who reached for a smoke everytime I was worried or scared or bored. It was me who started buying packs for you Menthol, only menthol on the way to and from your house. I remember the first time you took a stick off me. I was waiting for you outside the hospital, melting into the blue and white concrete tile that would come to signify your leaving. Like a cold flag. Like a checkered warning. I was leaning against a huge alabaster pillar, digging my toes into the small patches of grass that had managed to dodge all the sickness. You slumped down next to me. It was the first time I had ever seen you cry. You didn’t say a word. You didn’t have to, but I would have like to hear it anyway. You reached for my pack, I had left it half-open and crushed on the ground. I tried to grab it first, I was so used to you throwing them away mid-conversation. You pulled a cigarette out, pried the blue lighter from my clenched fist and tried to light it. You didn’t even know how to use my lighter. You struggled for a minute, then threw both on the ground, slamming the back of your head against the pillar. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say to you. I didn’t want to tell you I was angry, that I hated you for showing me a glimpse of a world without you. I didn’t want to talk to you, to hold you, to tell you it would be ok. Because nothing was going to be ok. It never would. I pulled my half-smoked cigarette from my mouth and let it hand loosely in my wrist, by your leg. I would tell myself again and again that I didn’t offer it to you. That you just took it. That this wasn’t my fault. That none of it was.