They don’t know you like I do.

“That’s what you do,” he says. “Leave people and places.”
He tells me it’s fucking exhausting.
“Go. I don’t want to talk to you again.”

He forgets that I once told him I don’t leave.
I know when it’s time to go.
People leave me.
Places show me the door when I’ve overstayed my welcome.

I think back to days ago when we were snowed in.
The white powder mounting against the window panes of the cabin.
The moon casting a spotlight between where we lay on opposite sofas.

It would be picturesque.
It would be cinematic.
It would be romantic

if I wasn’t terrified.

Everyone’s asleep. Except us.
I can feel your eyes on me, drawing my gaze toward you.
I catch a glimpse of your closed-lip smile.
That tail-between-the-legs smile.
That manipulative smile that pulled me back in after pushing me away.
Again. And again.

You pause and tell me I’m beautiful.
“Okay,” I say, acknowledging the sound that has come out of your mouth.
I feel as empty as your words right now.
Again, you tell me, as if I didn’t hear.
The forced conviction makes my ears ring.
I can smell the fresh-cut molly on your tongue as you move closer.

“It’s true,” you insist. “I feel it. Us.”
The sounds hang in the air against the stillness.
So much I can taste the poison dripping off your words that melt from the heat of the wood-burning stove.
You slide your tongue into my mouth as I catch them like snowflakes.
And pull back with the barely detectable smile.
I see it.
All my senses are triggered and the sixth one is burning a hole in my gut.
They tell me to stay, that I’m too hard on you, but they’re asleep.
They don’t know you like I do.

So I say I’m going.

Now here we are.
You’re pushing me away.
Telling me I didn’t give you a chance to ask me to stay.
You promise me you’ll visit.
But it all feels so cold.
Like the door was left open all night.