‘I Will Hang on the Hook of Your Splendor’

So I’m blanching vegetables <kale, peppers, corn and eggplant before I ran out of steam> and pretending that cutting things up doesn’t make my fingers tingle <arthritis. Always fucking arthritis> in the kitchen.

‘As the night rolls us up in its arms
And the square of your thumbs and your fingers
Is the blanket of sky that’s so warm’

From his computer
                                ;What do you want to do for our anniversary <first week in October> this year?;

‘I know it’s late
But I can’t help but thinking
That the day hasn’t shown all its cards’

I try not to make it obvious that I’ve dropped the knife I’m using.
                                                                                                        ;What do you mean?;

[Musical interlude which represents a discussion of how we have not once in five years done a single thing to mark the event of us becoming conjoined, mutually devouring ouroboros. <Look it up>]

‘Picking out all the stars that we like between
Finger and thumb
You laugh as you pass me the night
As if it’s
Too fragile to hold’

[End interlude with segue to the point in the conversation where I am trying to articulate why celebrating our anniversary at this point is not only pointless and futile, but actively painful for me to consider doing. I don’t want to go out to dinner on a day I will only be thinking about the four times before when we did absolutely nothing to mark the same occasion and I sectioned off a little more of myself on each of those prior four days]

He pulls his hands back from my back while I try to continue chopping.
                                                                                                                ;OK, fine. Well, I’m going to make a reservation somewhere and I’ll go when it’s time and I’ll sit at the table and wait for you and hope you want to come and join me.;

‘Now your eyelids they faint and they shiver
Like the wings of the last bird to leave
For the South
For no reason
At all
Just to fly for sheer joy’

I turn my head as far away from him as I can and start to leak and leak from my face. The reaction is as instant as if he had punched me in the nose. He must know I’m sobbing. My chest is wracked, though I am silent. Knife abandoned now on the board.

‘The wind shakes the branches above us
And the cars shake the ground at our backs
But the dark roman wine in our bloodstreams
Makes the cold just a word
Just a sound’

He finally <scared, so scared. Little boy scared> asks why I am suddenly so upset.

‘Picking out all the stars that we like
Between
Finger and thumb
You laugh as you pass me the night
As if it’s
Too fragile to hold’

It takes three tries, but I finally manage to say <as calmly as any human who ever spoke>
                                                                                                                                   ;That is the most succinct metaphor for how I have felt during this whole relationship that I have ever heard.
                                              But I don’t wait at the restaurant anymore. I’ve been working on accepting that you won’t come.;

‘And I hold it so close to my chest
With your
Hands in my hands
You say this is just how we’ll rest
Until the light turns to sound’
-Snow Patrol