You wear your tags beneath your shirt. My fingers twitch when I remember how I have known the skin on your chest where the metal letters now press.

I look at your face, searching. You stare at my worrying hands. Are you searching, too? My hands are the same. I can’t see the blood on yours, but I know it’s there.

“How did you know?”

I can hear you breathing. Waves breaking. My rib cage starts to tremble.

I start to tell you, but your eyes are soft like when I spilled your birthday dinner all over the kitchen floor and you called me darling and you look so young and I choke.

How could I not have known?

The first time was the day we both wore black. You had been holding a gun so long you forgot how to hold my hand and your fingers hurt but I let you. I knew because you hid your face and thought I didn’t know you were crying. I knew because that night you put your head on my chest and told me you were afraid of the silence after the heartbeat, and that time you didn’t hide. While you were sleeping the enemy came and you didn’t know who was holding the gun and I wasn’t enough to hold on to.

I had nightmares too, but you never woke.

I knew because in the mornings after that, I found cigarette ash on the windowsill. When the dark pressed too close and you couldn’t sleep, you no longer looked to me. I knew because you told me you talked to fill silences you didn’t want to listen to, and all those afternoons lying on my stomach on your bed all I did was listen. I knew because your cologne reminded me of winter, when your bandages matched the dirty snow. I knew because you never again drew me hears in the frost of your breath on your windshield.

I knew because I would cut my hair off to see if you would care.

Ours was an orphaned love. I was soft, and my fingers were gentle, so you stayed. But I didn’t know what there was left of you that were still mine to love. I knew because of the last night. I told you goodbye, but what I meant was I loved you. You told me you loved me, when you meant goodbye.

I know because even now, I don’t want to hurt you.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “It didn’t feel the same.”

Silence. Breath. Tremble.

“I love you,” you tell me, finally looking me in the eyes. It’s just like the last night

I start to cry.