The Things I Should’ve or Didn’t or Couldn’t Say
J.A. Tyler
I should have said I love you but instead I said okay, and I should have said I like that new black hair thing, but I didn’t. I went grocery shopping.
And I should have told you how I was thinking of you when I saw that new kind of soda water and fruit juice, how that would fit into the way you are, and how I bought a four-pack of pomegranate. But when I got home you had left your goddamn papers all over the table again and I just went mute.
I should have told you about the dream I had where I sat in the darkness of our closet counting your shoes. But instead I blared fuck at the alarm clock and woke up the baby. I should have apologized for that, but I didn’t.
And I should have told you that when I saw a baby the other day, this little yawning thing of pink and white, I thought a long time about smiling and having another one. But I couldn’t. I was busy biting my fingernails and scratching my legs and finding new ways to fault you.
So I thought it might help me to make a list of all these things. I wrote it in pen on a napkin leftover from the takeout we ordered the other night. But when I put the list in my pocket it sweat like guilt and disintegrated into a billion pieces. I spent most of today trying to put it all back together, but I couldn’t. So instead I wrote this with the hope that you’ll never read it, and never know all these things I should’ve or didn’t or couldn’t say.
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J. A. Tyler is the author of the forthcoming novellas SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press) and IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press) as well as the chapbooks THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (Trainwreck Press) and EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH (Achilles Chapbook Series). He is also founding editor of mud luscious / ml press. Visit: www.aboutjatyler.blogspot.com.
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