Through Neptune

This started, this descent from skyscraping cliffs that laughed at us like bullies; the plunge that romanced my viscera into my throat; my bleeding feet kicking violently, anticipating the bleak concrete ocean that rioted against the black rocks below covered in green moss tweed. This leap from stony edifices into sea salt vapor, fingers laced with your fingers, screams raveled with your poetry recital. This story of love and two self-catapulting kids, started December 17th of last year. 

And it ended nine months later, on a bench in between brick buildings. Where I fell to the sidewalk and crawled up between your legs; wanting to claw through your jeans; wanting to take some skin under my fingernails as a souvenir. Where you just stared off in any direction that wasn't me. And my throat just ached, alveoli seduced by flux. I was taken under the boardwalk current and the last thing I saw was you looking off saying "Can we please go now?"

Undertow, looking up I saw you walk off with a girl who wouldn't stop crying. You offered to give her a ride home and that was the last time I saw either of you.

My body caved through Neptune's body. I bypassed nights we told the world to stop so we could have each other in my mother's car. And I saw myself hand you a mixed CD that I had spent 5 hours working on, and the way you kissed me like no one else was looking, like no one else mattered. I watched your fingers thread through my gloved hands. I saw us sitting on your bed while my car ran outside for two hours because neither of us could stop talking. 

And then I watched while I carried you to your car from the Ranger because you had gotten too drunk to walk. Then the night when I had too much to drink and you got so furious with me you left me in your bed alone. When you were sober and we'd lock arms in stroll and you'd pull me back when I went ahead of you. Nights we went out to dinner and you'd explain to me why my jokes didn't make sense, or times you'd flat out tell me "That wasn't funny. Nothing about that is funny." 

Times you got upset and just left me at that bar when you were supposed to be my ride. A thousand incidences I did something that was all my own and you'd peer over and mention how unimpressed you were. How you would get annoyed with me when I couldn't be the life of the party, how you scolded me when I found conversation with people outside your social web of friends. I watched you walk me around a brick building and set me down on this bench, to tell me you couldn't keep doing this.

I woke up, coughing up salt water. Dug my ripped up feet into the sand. And for the first time since we leaped, I felt the Sun.