Accidental Confessions - Ruby Cofer

In the flickering yellow light of the gas station over on Pine  

you said three words, “I love you.”  

You said them in a nonchalant way,  

like I was expected to know what to do with that,  

like you’ve said them a thousand times before.  

I wondered, briefly, if maybe you had said them a thousand times before,  but in your head, to yourself, and just never aloud to me.  

I must’ve been right because your face quickly contorted.  

Shock, embarrassment, uncertainty;  

trust me, I was feeling the exact same way.  

We both know you didn’t say it in a best-bros,  

couple of buds out for a beer,  

drunk “I love you, man!” kind of way.  

You said them in a years of pining,  

can’t breathe around you, intoxicated by a touch kind of way.  

Maybe you are drunk.  

But on something other than alcohol.  

We stood there, staring, and you became  

something of a deep ocean pressure.  

If I dive too deep, trying to understand  

you’ll snap, and my brains will go splattering down  

onto the gasoline-stained cement.  

It’s out in the open now, so you repeat yourself.  

You say three words, “I love you,”  

like saying them again will cure my silence.  

But all I can do is pray that the yellow light flickers out entirely,  

giving me a chance to slip away.