I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

I hadn’t understood the tenderness of climbing into bed with you after a stretched-thin day. Of pulling the comforter down and sliding in beside you. Of falling into a dream before we could properly kiss goodnight, but knowing the kiss was still there, hovering between us.

If I had to choose, I would say the moment between when you decided to kiss me and when we actually kissed, that is where I wish to live forever. Inside my anticipation, dying to receive you.

Tomorrow, I decide, will be better. Tomorrow, I will recover from today.

Things didn’t work out with her for the same reason things never do: she felt like a distraction from my life, instead of a part of it.

“Ha!” the kid fake laughs and then real laughs at her own terrible fake laugh and then we are both laughing, but I’m not sure at what.

They seem so comfortable in the face of a dispute. How? How does one develop such security?

I think she’s fallen asleep but then she rubs her eyes, points at a period at the end of a sentence, and says, “Serious dot.”

“You’re so annoying,” she smirks, waiting to see how I will react. She fixes her tutu. “Why are you smiling? I said something rude!” “It’s nice, isn’t it?” “What is?” “To love someone so much.” “So much what?” “That you can love the annoyance, too,” I say, giving her a light shove.