Compatibility

She is simple and quiet

and soft around the edges.

And I am just here,

roaring like a summer thunderstorm,

trying to untangle shooting stars from my hair.

We're sitting on the roof in the dark

the way we've done a thousand times before

but this time, I'm trying not to tell you that I love you.

I swallow my words, but my throat feels like sandpaper,

like it knows that I need to say this out loud.

When I am with you, everything else melts away.

I look to you in the smallest of moments,

like when you talk to the person who's been standing alone all night,

like when you just need a minute to yourself,

like when you think no one is looking.

How do you even explain compatibility?

Maybe I just know because

we are deep in conversation in the middle of parties,

laughing about the same types of things,

sitting on the porch, making me believe that love is warm and good.

Driving under streetlights in brilliant silence,

being so honest and vulnerable and bare that it hurts,

speaking to me in deep tenderness—

looking at me with something like fondness.

I'd have given up half my dreams for you,

don't tell me that there is nothing here.

We're standing outside your house and my knees get all wobbly

and I open my mouth to say goodnight,

but all my words and emotions tumble into the air because

I'm nineteen and I'm naive and I believe that

Love is worth risking everything for.

I know that I will spend the next year thinking about this night,

turning your surprise and concern over in my hand,

allowing it to hurt me again and again.

So I sit with my arms around my legs,

torn up that you love her,

torn up that I ruined everything.

I feel like laying on the sidewalk in the rain or

screaming in my car or getting drunk on something other than vulnerability;

I've never felt this out of control,

I guess that's how I know that this is important.

I am not like her.

I am not her.

Couldn't you love me anyway?