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august’s Fortune cookie | poem

♪: and if love didn’t defeat us by strawbey

i carry us in fragments.
shards dulled by time,
edges softened but still sharp
enough to draw blood.
your room at 4 a.m.
was a sanctuary and a snare,
its dim light pooling like secrets
beneath the shadows that clung to us.
the air was thick with unsaid things,
your chest trembling under my hands,
a symphony of quiet desperation
as i tried to stitch your sorrow to mine.
you begged me to stay,
your voice cracking like fragile glass,
and i sat there, a half-broken thing
pretending my heart wasn’t already
slipping out the door.

the beach, endless and indifferent,
remembers us too.
the waves curled in like
breathless apologies,
their foam biting at our ankles —
small punishments for the words
we never dared to say.
salt streaked your lashes,
your tears trailing paths down
your cheeks as if the ocean
had reached up to mark you.
you were small that day —
smaller than i’d ever seen you.
and i was everything you clung to,
yet not enough to make you stay.

i remember your first cigarette,
its ember glowing like a distant star
against the dark canvas of night.
you coughed, winced, laughed,
and still drew another drag,
smoke curling around you
like whispers too fragile to touch.
you said it made you feel alive.
and i thought, me too.
because watching you burn yourself
slowly, felt like watching us.

even the small things felt colossal:
your thumbs pressing into my skin,
seeking out the gruesome flaws i had
hidden from the world and
the satisfying pop that
made us both laugh.
how strange it is — to feel so loved,
so seen, yet utterly whole
in something so mundane.

do you remember our first hangout?
we were just friends then.
we packed a picnic blanket and
drove to the beach, our beach,
high and a little drunk,
planning to talk under the stars —
but the cold came quickly,
biting at our cheeks.
so we lay down side by side,
shoulders barely brushing,
our bodies rotating like
clock hands in slow motion,
chasing warmth we couldn’t find.
when we realized, we laughed —
the sound carried by the wind,
falling somewhere between
awkward and free.
we didn’t touch then but
i remember thinking,
fuck, i might like him.
the thought stayed quiet,
tucked between us,
wrapped in the sound of the waves
and the blanket we pretended was enough.
you leaned down to pull me up,
your body swaying with cold and exhaustion,
almost stumbling over me.
i laughed so hard, the kind of laugh
that could break something open.
you laughed too, cracked and loose.
it was freezing that night,
and yet i think i started to feel warm.

and then there was our first date,
a perfect sliver of time suspended in gold,
the outdoor market was alive with movement —
a kaleidoscope of voices and color.
the summer breeze danced with
the scent of roasted corn
and the sweetness of spun sugar.
crowds surged around us,
but you and i carved out a world
of our own, ducking between stalls
and sharing bites of
skewered meat, sticky sweets,
our fingers brushing as we passed
snacks back and forth like stories.

you played the vendor games,
the colors of balloons and stacked bottles
reflected in your eyes,
your smile tinged with a boyish confidence
and when the first plushie slipped
through your fingers,
you only grinned, determined.
by the time you won,
arms heavy with fluffy prizes,
you turned to me with a smile
as the lights around us scattered
off your face like a blessing.

you said, i looked so happy
when you watched me cradle the plushies,
their soft fur pressed to my chest.
you said, it was cute
and your arm caught mine in a gentle tug,
like you couldn’t bear to let me go
even for a moment.
the sun warmed endlessly
and in everything that day.

but august soon came
with its cruel fortune —
a scrap of paper folded like a knife.
august will be when you find love again."
i laughed, uneasy, while you pocketed it
as if it was nothing.
but it meant the world to me.
now, i think you knew.
i think you knew.

you used to listen to me snore
in hotel rooms, your tired laugh
crackling in the dark like a spark.
you said i spoke to you in my sleep,
nonsensical, ridiculous things.

i said, i don’t snore
you said, i sounded crazy
i said, you loved me anyways

you have seen me without makeup,
again and again, my skin bare
and unguarded, a soft map of imperfections
i had spent years hiding from mirrors
and strangers alike. under your gaze,
i felt both exposed and invincible.
as though the uneven tones
and freckled scars
were constellations only you
could name.
you traced them with your eyes,
never flinching,
your silence a kind of reverence
that made me wonder if i could truly be
something pretty.

maybe i was warning you.
maybe i already knew.

even my sister,
the one i trust most in this world,
you fought with her.
words spilled sharp as glass,
cutting into the space between us.
i remember the fire of it.
but you surprised me.
you, all pride and edges,
swallowed the flames.
both of your apologies,
awkward but earnest,
spilled into the silence
like rain after drought.
when she smiled at you again,
something in me softened,
a thread weaving my two worlds together.
the three of us played video games,
your laughter filling the spaces
where doubt had once lived.
for the first time, i saw my life fold
into yours, edges seamless and soft.

and my parents,
their arms stretched wide,
their smiles an open invitation.
they welcomed you
into their cramped world, fed you,
folded you into their summer
as if you belonged there.
they poured their trust into your hands,
their kindness weaving you
into the tapestry of us.
and now — now,
guilt presses its sharp teeth into my chest.
did i give you too much?
did i hand you my whole world
without asking if you could hold
its weight?

because you left.

after my parents dropped you off,
i called you from my childhood room,
where the walls still whispered
of the girl i used to be,
painted with dreams that
never learned how to leave.

i miss you, i said.
words spilling out too quickly,
like i had to empty myself of them
before they grew heavier.
i made plans for your birthday,
i said, i cant wait,
a celebration meant only for you.
a gift wrapped in tenderness
and intention.

but your reply came like a splinter
under my skin, sharp, unexpected,
impossible to remove:
"you’re acting too much like a girlfriend.”
the words struck like stones,
heavy and cold, their weight knocking
the breath from my chest.
i stared at the chipped paint on my walls,
its cracks spreading like fault lines,
and suddenly, i felt split in two.
i was angry. and you were right.

you said, i was doing too much.
i said, i know.
you said, you wanted to be alone.
i said, what about me?
you said, you wanted to focus on yourself.
i nodded but you couldn’t see.
i said, okay.

to me, those weren’t explanations.
they were hollow placeholders
for something you didn’t have
the courage to say.
because while i stayed,
waiting in the lonely silence
of my hometown,
you went back to swiping on screens,
your thumb tracing paths
over strangers’ faces,
lingering on pretty girls
with clear skin and skinnier waist,
looking for someone to fill the spaces
you forced me to leave wide open.

i sit with these memories now,
turning them over like coins in my hand.
they shine, but they cut too —
each one a reminder of what i loved
and what you discarded.

i am stuck in the spaces we once filled,
angry and tender all at once,
resenting the man who cried in my arms,
missing the boy who made me laugh
even when the dark was suffocating.

you left me with ghosts.
left me clutching at a fortune cookie’s lie,
the sound of waves breaking in the distance,
and the memory of your arm
linked with mine
at the crowded market —
the sunlight spilling over plushies
pressed to my chest,
your quiet smile as you said,
i looked so happy, so cute.
the plushies sit in a corner now,
their softness untouched,
their stitched smiles cruel in their stillness.

you left me holding the silence
that came after my family said goodbye,
the ache of a ride home that became
the last chapter of us.

i want to hate you,
but i don’t know how to let go
of the way you held me in the dark,
your tears staining my skin,
your arms tightening around me
when you thought i might
disappear.