midnight // love poems

bad chinese

"bad chinese" re: april eighth, 6 pm

I am the best liar that I know. When my mother asks me where I'm going, I smile confidently and tell her to my friend's house. As in, friend who is a girl. Certainly not to the house of a tall, older boy with eyelashes for days and a huge smile. When my best friend asks me if I texted my ex, 'I miss you,' I pretend to be positively offended at the thought.

He tells me, as he kisses my forehead, I'm very easy to read. He always knows what I'm thinking. He can see the thoughts swirling in my head cast shadows on my face. He can sense and pulse each feeling written in indelible ink on my skin.

When my mother asks why my lip is swollen, I do not tell her it is because his white teeth bit my soft flesh. Instead, I tell her that I ate some bad Chinese, and when she hears this, she quickly yells at me. She tells me that it always make me feel sick after. It tastes good enough when you're eating, I protest, but she's right. My stomach twists at the thought of eating more. It always leaves me oily and messy, chipped at the edges, cheap and nauseated.

When I go out for dinner with my family the next day, I make sure to offer each and every person my food twice, insisting that they eat some. They mistake me restricting my eating for generosity and politeness and I think this was the same politeness I extended to him when he asked if he could unclasp the latitudes of my world.

He can read me like an open book. And not even Tolstoy or Plato, we're talking Betty and Veronica. Easy.

But he is a good person. He is gentle, he is kind, he is respectful. His hands are not explorers or cartographers, they are artists. They are painting pictures on my bare skin and they are writing poetry on my thighs. He is asking. He is asking. He is always asking.

When he tells me that I have the body of a model, I try to take it as a compliment and like, not compare myself with his ex. When he tells me that I'm a fun kissers, I try to take it as a compliment and not overthink it for the next two hours. When he asks me how turned on I am, I try not to think about house it's the second day of my period and I'm not really very sexy but we know I can't lie to him so I deflect and ask him how turned on he is. When he says on a scale of one to ten, eleven, I take that as a compliment.

And he is always asking. He is asking. It is important to him to keep asking. And yes, I reply. Yes, I breathe against his rough cheek. Yes, I whisper into his ear. Yes, I run my hands through his hair.

When my brother asks me if I ate his food from the fridge, I say no, I did not. When my friend asks me if I think she should get back with her ex, I say no, he's a dick.

When I am with him, I begin to speak a different language. This language does not have the word no in it. Its script has been tattooed on my spine with blood as its ink. I do not speak it. This language does not speak. This language listens. This language is written for the negative spaces. He is speaking in metaphors of colour, and I am listening in broken syllables of negative space.

That isn't to say that I would say no. That isn't to say that I am uncomfortable. I am not uncomfortable. This is not a thunderstorm crashing against my ship's wood. This is not choppy seas splintering my mast. This is an even day. Calm and almost disengaged, going through the motions of hands and lips, waiting for the feeling of whizzing through the water with wind-whipped hair and racing hearts, endorphins and all that. 

I am the best liar that I know. But right now, i can't lie to myself because I don't know what I feel. I do know that the boy who does not love me tells me that I am like an open book. I agree. I find myself agreeing more often than not.

I extend him the same kindness I extend as I shrink the amount of food on my plate. Take, I say, smilingly. I hope you enjoyed your meal, I say, and I mean it.