Matthew

I remember those nights, I would taste regret more with each tear down my cheek. How sensitive a soul I was and yet those tears rested in a compartment of four walls with my hand constantly clasped over them and my tongue bit with my cheeks and such.

Each day passed, I saw them less. I missed him. Maybe he had forgotten as I had wished him to do, as I wished for myself to do but each night I heard him crying out to me. Quiet enough so that it only grasped my earlobes.

Sunday, I know not which one but I faintly remember that same talk from the pastor. Looks of worry from those within the congregation but they said nothing, I manage to lie the bags as being school fatigue.

I walked out of the restroom, down the silent hallway for a moment. And then I felt a force grasp me into a smallish corner, was it him.

No, but rather a tall afro, warm skin and worried eyes. She looked pained for me like she wanted to see that stupid smirk she always complained about.

"Matthew..."

She stared at me silently as though she didn't know what to say. Rather she just wanted to miraculously shake the pain out of me and wash me dry.

"Please tell me what's going on, I can't keep seeing you like this."

Was I to tell her who I was, a gay boy who fell for some idiot who probably only saw me as a game for his curiosity. What if she told my mother, what if she scolded me, what if she hated me.

"I'm fine," I replied.

"Please," tears almost in her lids "I know you, I can tell something is going on."

"I promise you I'm fine, " I started walking out of the space to feel her hand grasping my wrist.

"I won't tell anyone" but what if she did.

"There's nothing to tell, " I feigned a smile.

She hugged me from the back of my chest, clasping at my skin as though it were to save her from drowning. Sometimes I wonder why she never told me of her shackles, those things drowning her only a couple of feet from me.

"You can come to me when you want to, just know that I'm here even if James is busy with Clara"

What

"What do you mean busy with Clara"

"He got back with her, but I don't think she likes him like she used to. It's probably because of Cyprus and their little relationship. You could tell he hurt her, but what else is highschool for."

She rolled her eyes at her comment, tasting bitterness like poison on her tongue. She knew better than to date in this borderline hell hole.

But all that ran through my mind was images of his kisses trailing down her skin and not mine. Him whispering sweet nothing into her ears, tell her how beautiful she is to him.

Maybe those thoughts were right, he truly saw me as momentous. Something to satisfy his needs then and there, riddle him with compliments and reasons why he is the moon and every star in between.

"Anyways, please know you can talk to me"

Had she been speaking just then, I wouldn't know because all I saw was their wedding day. Being his best man, delivering a speech and acting like I didn't wish it was me.

I wish I was the one to have kissed him as an old hag announced us, husband and husband. That only death could part us, not even those stares of judgement as I let his fingertips intertwine with mine. Maybe in a dream, or a universe in infinity and beyond.

"Mr & Mr Roberts-Letesha"

Monday cane around eyes now searching for him in the odyssey of teenage bodies lingering in this school that I declared my hatred for daily. Smirks as those two people laughed at a locker, one biting his lips as he made a joke that the girl cute laughed at.

I scoured until my breath hitched in a space between regret and jealousy, near my windpipe. He smiled at her, her eyes an inch or two below his.

She looked the same she did those years ago, stupid as hell.

Well not really, just stupid for talking to him. She tried to like me but something in me always hated her, it was probably her smile or her dark hair. Hair that curled so perfectly around her giggles and dimples that could never amount to the beauty that radiated from his eyes as he looked at her.

Was it love or rather something platonic? I wouldn't know but it was affection; affection enough for blood to evaporate into the tips of my ears and liquidize once more as it was bitten between my teeth.

That final love letter that was sealed by the space between his legs, and he cries out to me that one night fell. I heard it ricochet against the glazed floor filled with muddy footprints, it turned grey, from crimson.

It no longer whispered of the days we would run together in a field, nor the days I would hold him like he held my sanity with each peck against my lips as he grasped for my attention. Those memories lost or tinted blue and grey, by her dimples and hand clasped between his own. It didn't look right.

He looked toward me smile falling, gaze turned ice. You could tell he was using every atom within himself to not through up in disgust. He looked pained at the sight of me.

Supposing I deserved it (which I did) it hurt. But maybe it was for the better, at that moment I saw him smile fake at her to ease her lightening dimples.

Then he grasped her hand tighter, whispered in her ear and swivelled on those heels of his. They left hand in hand, bonded in their dimples and how James could never fathom a hand over a girls shoulder.

Throughout those days I would feel the sting of a viper in my lung. My lungs daring to be filled with cigarette smoke or the puffs of weed I was told would alleviate pain, momentarily.

How could he?

Why didn't he chase after me as I would him, look into my eyes and see that his laugh was stuck between my dark irises? That his hands trickling down my shirt grasping at my breaths as he halted his heartbeat until it synced with mine.

He should've chased me I told myself each day in the confinement of four walls. Maybe I was right and all he wanted was a tongue down his throat and a hand in his pants telling him to swivel his hips. The geography of his red skin traced at midnight.

Why was he so happy?

Was he not the one who told me of his discontent at the inability to taste me like berries in front of the world. Show me off as I did him with hand in hand and sweat intermixed.

Where they just lies to cause easier access to my warm layer of skin aching. Under his lovebites.

A distinct interaction which was one in which I can't forget because it hurt so much then. Was when his vessel, not far from empty lingered around my class waiting for Faye I suppose only to see my gaunt figure. His eyes dropped, he felt remorse in them until he remembered to be upset.

Pouring gasoline over his gaze, his scowl tainted discontent. Though it felt real in the moment.

"James"

He edged closer as though 'caution' written on my scalp, did he fear me.

"What?"

Mouth agape just to be shut abrupt by the scents of lavender and some stupid perfumes from God knows. It tasted too much like Clara.

His taunt burned a hole in my scalp, a boy a light, woe was me as a metallic taste edged up my throat. Was that his blood that I licked off each time I bit too hard?

"What do you want?"

"I- um I, since when did you begin dating her again," I felt as though a scowl arising from the depth of hell sat at my cheeks as his gaze darkened.

"Why does it matter, I thought that you were different to me? Cut from a separate cloth, huh"

Was that what he saw, did I really make him feel spite like that.

"Don't fucking talked me, I don't need you anymore and I never will" he scoffed " why did I ever indorse you, I should've known that your childishness covered all aspects of your life."

Say something.

His head titled as though he wanted a rebuttal, he didn't get that.

"Matthew fuck you, I mean it. Don't come near me anymore I don't need you hurting me" he involuntarily swallowed the last word or a tear " just don't do this to someone else, break them because you feel like you can't handle the truth. No one deserves that."

His gaze still spiteful and yet I tasted salted droplets at my tongue. Did he want to cry?

Did I hurt him that much, without a second thought? Tell him he was beauty encapsulated in skin, blood and oil. Tell him to fuck off two minutes later because I couldn't take the truth I whispered between his earlobes and legs.

Fuck.

He turned on his heels, did I rebuke his towering words. No.

But I tasted pain and hate like the scars atop my arms, beneath my clothes and mixed fabrics.

I was pitiful.