My sobriety comes with a consequence: it makes me remember.

That one night months ago, when I was shaking so you touched me and I felt it in my throat.

But now my sister is asleep in her bed and her sheets are rustling as she shuffles and all I can
do is laugh because I’m on the phone with you and you’re asking if I’m okay and it’s the first
time you’ve ever said that to me and sounded like you meant it.

I told you that you made me cry and you clicked your tongue and I stopped you before you
started to speak and told you that I didn’t want an apology, that I just wanted you to know.
You promised to be better but I didn’t tell you that for some reason I didn’t want that from
you either.

You made me learn the hard way not to make the unspoken thing spoken, so I never told you
that I loved you. But I know that you heard it when I told you that you’re more important to
me than my anger. I wish I could lie and say I didn’t try to find a response in your silence.

I read your conversations with other people and see pieces of me in the way you speak and
wonder when we began to grow into each other fast enough to grow each other out.