We sit down and stare at each other. I wonder what you think. Walking through the maze of this relationship has made walls spring out of arid nothing and curl around me tighter with every passing day. I often see you cry. You can’t see what I say. I can’t see how you can’t.

We meet because we know we need to talk about ‘us’. I know I should just walk away. You think you’ve grown to understand me. I think you’ve grown to believe in a twisted image of me in your head which grips at my lungs and squeezes the air out of them. You think I’ve stopped trying to understand you. I think I would hate myself if I ever had the audacity to say that I did.

We meet where you want us to meet, at your place, because we need a quiet place to talk it through. I sit myself down and force myself not to assume. But I dread the moment we meet, when you won’t talk, but ask me instead, manically, what’s wrong and you’ll reach out to touch me.

You say you can talk after sex, because it makes you feel comfortable. I say I can have sex after talking because it makes me feel comfortable.

You say we’ve never had sex, we made love. I say… I don’t say, I’m insensitive enough to laugh.

You say you don’t care for sex, it’s all about something else, something big, something spiritual. A union of the souls. God knows what. I say then how come every time we meet there’s one thing and one thing only you’re interested in. When did we stop having something to talk about.

I say I’ve always told you: I am a loner, a writer, a reader, a chain smoker at times; I’m a quiet observer, a runaway, an egoist. Not your pair, not your better half, not a romantic. You say you know and you’re giving me space to myself. I don’t want to be given space. You don’t really want to give it anyway.

I say we’re driving each other insane. You say I’m your life, your raison d’etre. I say we’d be better off minus all this pressure, being around for each other, being separate individuals thrown together once in a while. You say please don’t go.

I always go. Give me a month, I say in my head, to stop being angry. Then I’ll remember you’re a nice person and I liked you indeed. I don’t say love any more. I tiptoe the borders. Those I love are twisted awkward hybrids. We tiptoe the borders together, them and me.