Amy Havel’s work has appeared in Conjunctions, Adirondack Review, Tarpaulin Sky, Small Spiral Notebook, Portland Magazine, Pindeldyboz, as well as failbetter 13. She lives in southern Maine.

Enough Said

posted Feb 26, 2008

Say that you’ve never met anyone like me before. Say you’ve never felt like this before. Say you’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Say it’s like the first time. Say it’s the first time. Say this means more than anything else. Say that it means a lot. Say it’s important. Say it’s very important. Say you feel like you’re floating. Say you’re floating. Say I look beautiful in the summer light. Say that my eyes look beautiful in the summer light. Say that it’s not a line, it’s true. Say it’s true. Say I look beautiful in the dark. Say I should have more confidence in myself.

Say someone must have treated me badly because I have so little confidence.

Say you’d never do that. Say you can’t imagine hurting me. Say if you had a choice; say there’s no choice. Say there’s no point in talking about it.

Say what the point is. Say that the point is honesty. Say that you’re honest. Say that you’ve always been honest with me. Say you’ve been honest from the start. Say when the start was. Say what honesty is. Say that honesty breeds trust. Say we’re breeding trust. Say I’m missing the point to argue about the word breed being misused. Say I’m missing the point.

Say I’m missing the point, again. Say what the point is. Say I think too much about words and what they mean or could mean or how to use them in different ways. Say I use words in different ways to get what I want. Say I get what I want. Say I always get what I want.

Say I’m being difficult. Say I’m difficult. Say I’m twisting things around. Say I’m twisting things around, again. Say I’m misunderstanding; say I don’t understand. Say I’m not seeing things correctly. Say what things look like correctly. Say if I’d just give you the chance to explain.

Say you can explain. Say you can explain; say you can. Say it’s a matter of how you look at things. Say how you look at things. Say I need to look.

Say how to look. Say it’s important to look at the big picture. Say the big picture is very big. Say the big picture is so big you can’t even see the whole thing. Say you’re not avoiding the topic. Say I’m getting on your nerves. Say I’m never satisfied. Say I have too much confidence in my own interpretation; say I must have been through something strange to have so much blind confidence. Say it’s clearly something I never told you about. Say clearly I never told you about this thing, whatever it was. Say I haven’t been honest with you. Say that I haven’t been honest from the start. Say that honesty breeds trust. Say that I need to shut up already about a word and what it means and what it doesn’t mean and how to use it properly. Say no one cares. Say no one cares but me. Say that things are changing, say that time changes things. Say how time changes things. Say how the longer days are deceptive. Say how summer is deceptive; say how summer is deceptive like I’m deceptive. Say that I’m pushing you too far with this deception. Say you’re at the end of your rope. Say you’ve never felt like this before. Say that you’ve never met anyone who can make you mad like me. Say that you’ve never met anyone like me before. Now say it again.