Looking back, I'm pretty sure it was all a pretense, a Cirque du Soleil of mutual loathing and shared aversion. But again, on hindsight, it was never each other that we loathed (or feared) but rather the possibility that something beyond our childish comprehension would come and sweep us away if we let our guard down. I think we acknowledged that inside, but never in the presence of others, like some kind of treaty signed in a back room. The thrill of being mutually exclusive fuelled our distaste for a closeness that could have easily been attained, given our innate knowledge of what lay behind that wall of avoidance, the farce of loathing.
The audience must have been fooled, surely, by our acrobatics. The tightrope had two ends: Love and Hate. The physics of it meant that we balanced precariously in the middle; sometimes you would step back, sometimes I'd move forward and other times we'd switch places, but never touching. They never thought that we could be at both ends at once - a second you and a second me. Of course, it had absolutely nothing to do with gravity.
It's been years, anyway.
I've already landed on the safety net. Sometimes, though, I miss the adrenaline rush - the rope dividing my sole, the omnipresent space dividing us.

even though I know it's just
Me
I hate being an afterthought.
But afterthoughts can be good can't they? like the final touch to some painting or something
something besides "hey, do you want to come too?" that doesn't matter if it's answered
like you do my messages. Indifferently.
it's rude to offer the second last bite.

I know why they call it a heart
Ache
Not splinter stab slice splice
Sharpness reminds you that
you're alive
Rather, they would have
Something dull,
moving you between this reality and the
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