Paid in
Installments

I think I must be paid for in installments little debts scattered on the tables of those I've loved, coins left behind forgotten, quietly counting themselves. I have always been too expensive; the burden of a gaze measured in quiet sighs, my silences heavy as stones you carry one, two, three and still, there is more of me to shoulder. And how do I tell you, that I felt your knees buckle beneath the weight of my unspoken nights the careful selection of my words, so many knives wrapped in silk, so many truths kept pocketed, holding us down until we no longer move freely among each other's thoughts? This is the price the erosion of patience, of kindness, of soft hands held in darkness small payments made daily, until there is only absence left to settle the balance. I stand here, a storm you never asked for, rain pooling in your open hands, asking silently if this flood is worth enduring for glimpses of sunlit moments brief warmth between clouds, fleeting peace before thunder rumbles again. Some days, I see clearly: I am the thing you rescue from drowning, only to drown yourself, with the maelstrom I carry inside. I wonder, quietly, if anyone can afford the expense of loving me if I can afford it myself, if the currency of my heart is accepted anywhere but here, in this shadowed market of confusion. But still, I lay out my broken pieces wares on a tattered blanket hoping you'll find something worth keeping, knowing all the while that the price is far too high.