When You Asked Me How I Was

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this is what I should have said:

I wish you didn’t have to pretend that you’re disappointed. That you could just fucking cry if you needed to. I wish you could express yourself, get through security quicker, forget all the red tape and just say how it is you’re feeling. All these little games we play. I’m upset but I pretend I’m not because it would make everyone uncomfortable if I was honest. And we can’t have that. Maybe we should all be a little more uncomfortable a little more often. At least then there’d be less unspoken resentment festering under our scalps like wood rot. The passive aggression isn’t so passive. It’s not very subtle. The anxiety is clawing like ice at the windows. Why can’t you just tell me? Tell me and I’ll take it on the chin and let it smash through my flesh so that it takes root and I learn something for once. Learning the hard way isn’t the same as a bad education. Sometimes we need a good slap of reality, breathe in the breadth of our destructive ways. Maybe then we’ll change. Maybe I’d be different if you actually told me all of the ways I have caused you harm. Death by a thousand cuts. That’s how relationships end now. Not through words, but rather words unsaid. Too polite for our own good. You can’t even tell me that I pissed you off anymore. Take the easy way out. Download dating apps again and stop texting back. Much easier than having a conversation in this day and age. How fucked is that?

I should have said this, but instead I swallowed it down and smiled and said I’m fine, what about you?