When I can’t sleep, which is often, I try to bring back all the colors and shapes of loving you, back into my bones and breath, and hands. Back to my mouth, open, to my chest, open, to the curve of my shoulders, the slope. I try to soften. So I can find you…back when my body moved like this, and so did yours, and in this space we’d say the words, where you built a whole world for me.

The first time I love you tumbled out of your mouth, your words felt like they were tumbling down the stairs. I love you, you said. I love you. I love you. My response was to hold my breath, as the rest of the words tumbled down to the landing, gathered at the bottom. Like you do when you are a family, and someone is missing is now home at the front door. Because loving you back was coming home. And loving you back was knowing you were the family I was waiting for, and I wanted to open every front door to pull you in at the hips, to draw you in, like water, to say to you, my mouth close to yours that I love you too, that I had been missing you for so long.

And now. I have been missing you for so long.

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The Fall I decided I did not want to spend a life proving things…I was not welcomed home.  

When I called my parents, to tell them that I would no longer be continuing on as a PhD student at Penn State, my mom shared this. ‘well you’re not coming back here. you gave up’ She hung up, before I could. I remember sitting down in my apartment, looking around, wondering what had I done.

 

It wasn’t too late. Nothing was in writing. I could have gone back to my advisor. Apologized for my behavior, excused it based on any number of things, I would have been excused, we all would have moved on. Maybe I would have sat in the back the first few weeks of the semester, instead of the front, like I always did, kept my head down, done my work, and done it well. I wouldn’t ask questions like usual, I would give up understanding, I would have kept my mouth shut. I’d accept that behavior is predictable, and I’d measure against variables. I’d be the first one in the lab, and the last one out. I’d prove my results. I could have done all the things, you do when shame is the driver. For me, the expression is to say nothing, to shut up. I’d show you. I’d run 5 miles in the morning. 10 miles on the weekends. I’d do it all perfectly. I promise you, I’d show you.

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