Collection

Places.

Aniqua and I somehow ended up wondering what we are to each other now. I wrote three versions that tell the three sides to how I feel/felt about her.

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Places. (10/21/19)

First things first.

If it came down to it, everybody could get dropped.

That's the basis of this.

The rest of it is that in my head you have never stopped being mine and, even as much as I've been trying to attempt to convince myself otherwise to preserve my sanity, I have never stopped being yours.

There are things I wrote in the months immediately following that could probably shed some light.

There's something I wrote when Nipsey Hussle died, something I wrote on your birthday, and something I wrote in July that would probably give you some idea.

Maybe you'll see those someday.

Maybe I'll even read them to you.

I went out into the world and I tried to find things to replace you, tried to convince myself that I was wrong and that you, that this, that we aren't as...deep, aren't as...real, aren't as...scary, as I feel like we are.

It didn't work.

I turn it over and over in my head.

Because there was a point in time when I was torn, though I don't think I ever told you that.

About a year ago, because it's almost Thanksgiving again, you were at Tyquan's house and I was home.

I hadn't seen you in three months and I was losing my mind, starving for your voice and presence and feel under my hands like a man lost in the desert for two years.

I made a choice that night that I don't think I ever told you about, so I guess now's as good a time as any.

You were there and you told me that if I wanted to see you, my chance had come. So I went outside.

But I left Makaya in the living room watching tv with my brother.

I sat on the toilet for twenty minutes. Going back and forth with myself, trying to get Jacoby to talk me out of doing exactly what I knew I was going to do because I didn't want to hurt Makaya.

Later, when she asked me why, I said "because she was right there." And she said "but I was in the house."

And yeah, I get that.

And yeah, maybe I shouldn't have but I don't give a fuck. I couldn't not see you when you were literally right there, couldn't not hold you, couldn't not kiss you, couldn't not breathe your air if only for a few precious moments.

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That's not the end of this.

You are...the oxygen in my lungs.

Some days I hate myself for it...how much I love you.

Because you think it would have changed in some way, would have twisted into something dark when you left and tried to turn back into something lighter when you returned but no.

It never changed.

Sometimes I want to stab you slap you hit you in the face because I'm honestly still as in love with you now as I was then.

Sometimes it makes me angry, makes me wanna slap my reflection and make him tell me how but I get it.

You get me, man. Like, you might not think you do or you might not think you know me well but that's not the case.