I Will Never Believe in Anything Again- Stephanie Johnson

Sweet like – cinnamon, perhaps? It is flavor I am going for; less sugar and more spice – your words are honeyed, it’s true, but I am not in the mood for lies tonight. You remind me of things I do not have the words for, nostalgia a bitter pill when it is for things I barely remember: one warm, summer eve, I might say, I went down to the dock, and dangled my feet above the water, and thought that I might fall in. I didn’t, of course – fall, that is – but I thought I might, and that is how you make me feel. The air was heavy, humid and dense, but the company was good, and it seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, a far better fate than the cool, air-conditioned rooms of my home.


With you, it is much the same: you make me uncomfortable, an itch under my skin that no amount of scratching will alleviate, but it is better than the alternative.

If I write of your appearance, I will undoubtedly dissolve into either hysterics or clichés – hysterics, because you make me stupid, and clichés because everything about you has, in some way, been done before. Irony is, unfortunately, for those far hipper than I, so I will instead choose for myself the higher ground on which to stand: my horse is tall, you are not, and when you are near, I cannot breathe.

(My dreams, much like my hands, are desperate; a constant, aching reach: in them, we are friends, nothing more, and I am just as besotted as I am now, but my words reach your ears – bring a smile to your face – and that is enough.)

You like my words; like the way they float off the page – I am melodic to a fault, and my laughter, whilst falling occasionally flat, going sharp, is entirely for you. Don’t you realize that if you wanted, I’d write you songs?

It is behind compartmentalization that I hide, pieces all that stand between us two: I can duck my head and shut my eyes against the blinding brilliance of your smile, and the fragments of your laughter – sharp as they are – (whilst lodging themselves inescapably in my side) – are ignorable, but you as an entity escape me.

An open book, I gulp down words like I am dying of thirst – I mean what I say, but I do not always say what I mean, and it is in this contradiction that I seek refuge. If asked, I answer; if pressed, I recoil; if questioned, I crumble: yes, I do; love is a strong word; no, no, I know he is, but I just –

Here, then, is my dilemma: despite all evidence to the contrary – ignoring all reason, logic, and common sense – overlooking the fact that I can’t talk to you without feeling like I’m seconds away from bursting out of my own skin; that every time you speak, I pocket words like spare change until I cannot move without borrowed sounds spilling from my mouth – pretending that your joy has a direct correlation to my own, rather than in- –:

I like you.