you said "i love you" to me thirteen times in that one month, and i was like a parrot, repeating but not knowing what i was really saying. i said "i love you, too" like a best friend loves her best friend, like an author loves her characters, like i love your chocolate brown eyes. i was saying "i love you" like i need your warm lips against my own, like i need those soft cheekbones aching from your smiles, like i need that red jacket that curls over your arms. like i trust your arms to hold me, like i trust you enough to care.
it's almost like our last hug, that one, lonely, iwashappytwosecondsagobutnowimsingleonceagain awkward fumble of two beautiful arms wrapping me inside that chest to the point when i misinterpreted your toe-stomping heartbeats for my thoughts that were spiraling out of control, wondering how i was really taking it. and i decided i was taking it fine, repeating "i'm single. i'm single." over and over like a parrot and i was only human when i really sat down on that bus and knew.
so i trapped my feelings inside my sore chest and my thoughts tumbled into a puzzle inside of my brain so that i no longer knew what was attached with what, so that i never even remembered what kind of disoriented human i was forgiving, because we do that. and i know myself too well to think it would never happen again and that i would accidentally crawl back in, repeating my mishap like a parrot repeats choked-up words. i locked the door to my heart, but you were still inside it. and you were rattling and rattling on that door, yelling and yelling, "let me out of here! let me out of here! i have new interests, this isn't where i belong! i don't love you anymore!"
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and it's only what i feel because that's all that i can possibly give to you, to me, to him. and i know, i know, it'll never happen again. ever.