Buck Rogers & Curly Sue. (Prose for Apt. 3)
You used to be my first call. Not because you always knew what to say, but because you never acted like I needed to say anything at all. A few long strides down the driveway and I could be on your bedroom floor, face turned toward the ceiling fan, watching it carve slow circles through the dark while you moved around me like I belonged there. You would step over my ankles without breaking conversation, folding laundry, checking your phone, half-listening to some Buck Rogers video playing tinny through the speakers, and somehow that was enough to quiet every terrible thing in my head. I remember thinking that love must look different than people say it does. Maybe it looks like this: someone making space for your body without making you apologize for its existence. Because I was always in the way. Stretched across the carpet. Blocking drawers. Leaning against counters. Occupying space like a misplaced object left somewhere it shouldn't have been. And still, you never sighed. Never a...
