You ran away, wrecked and scared to the safety of your dysfunction.
You took with you pieces of me and a heart doomed to regret.
You left behind a gutted soul and a broken heart.
Just You
I am the sort of heartbroken that alters the soul.
My chance is gone, our time is up.
All I wanted was you. Just you.
Exactly the way you are.
I didn’t need you. I chose you, I wanted you.
You weren’t the guy I held up to others as proof that we were in love.
That was never important.
The way you looked at me, the way you kissed me, the way you held my hand was proof enough.
You weren’t my social media image, plastered on my page to assure everyone you belong to me.
That was never important.
I didn’t need you to belong to me. I wanted to love you in a way you felt free.
You, just you. Your brilliantly weird mind. Your soul kindness. Your thoughts, your feelings, your essence.
All that makes you, you.
That was what was important.
I never wanted to change you or control you. I didn’t need to make demands upon you or take you away from anything important in your life.
I only wanted to love you, to be with you exactly the way you are.
A
In my darkest moments, you show up.
Listening without judgment.
Seeing me at my worst, you saw past the glass in my hand and into my heart and always believed I could be better, even when I did not.
You are filled with beauty and grace, one of the strong.
Already carrying so much, you still lend your hand to lift others’ burdens.
You are love in motion.
I can’t imagine my life without you.
And am grateful for you every day.
And I like the way you draw out the U when you say or type FUUUUUUCK.
Too Close
I can see the thoughts sparking around in your head.
For you, I’m within reach.
For me, you are too close.
I can’t breathe with your thoughts in front of me.
Your desires are too close.
But you will forever deny them for the sake of safety.
And I cannot stand it.
I cannot stand you.
The big pile of want and never will be is between us.
Like being near a live wire, it is dangerous and alluring.
We can’t touch each other but are still too close.
Close enough to catch fire and be burned.
Breath
Standing on the shore, surrounded by ice resembling glittering broken shards of glass, I listen as the water creaks and moans.
The Sun rises.
Pink, purple, and orange across the blue and white Sky.
I breathe in, grateful for the Earth’s assurance that the demons I battled in the depths of my darkness last night are leaving me.
I hold my breath and watch.
The magic of the Sky opens wide and releases me.
No longer living breath to bottle, I welcome the light.
Softness
It is the softness I remember most.
The way you drew my hand into yours, a living, active motion. Moving your fingers against mine. Tracing my palm with your thumb.
Your eyes were kind and gentle. Blue and deep. Soft in their gaze.
For those moments my world was made of curves instead of edges.
So it is the softness I remember when my days are hard.
Once Again
You were my favorite. I hoped you would stay.
That you would let me keep loving you.
I wish this time you were my reward for a lifetime of caregiving.
Mine to keep as a gift for teaching so many men how to accept love.
I wish you were staying instead of leaving and taking with you the magic I showed you.
But here I am again, alone and starting over.
Invisible
The quiet hush of Winter surrounds my life.
I feel invisible.
I wander around my home, touching things to ground me and assure myself I exist.
I am cold, down to my bones.
In those moments, I desperately long for the warmth of the Sun on my body.
I look out the window into the gray and think of hot sand on my skin.
The sounds of Water and laughter and the taste of summer fruit in the heat.
The Wind blows outside, spinning the tops of snowbanks into the Air and I am sharply aware of the depth of my cold.
Fifteen Years
I remember sitting next to you, holding your hand, during a moment of calm after the storm.
I quietly asked you why?
Why do you hit me? Why are you so cruel?
I remember you cried and said you were sorry.
You gave me a list of excuses for your rage.
Some of them were even about me.
But it was never really about me.
What you didn’t say was you were sad and sacred.
That I was an easy target for all the hurt inside you because I was trapped. And I loved you.
I loved you, in good times and in bad.
There was more to our story than the times you left me crying in the corner, bruised and battered.
We did laugh We had fun. Sometimes.
But mostly, I lived in a state of terror, just waiting for the next time you lost control.
You took everything and left me with nothing.
You harmed me in ways I am still discovering.
Time has passed since I left.
I am no longer in a constant state of hypervigilance. I no longer dread you walking through the door, and I no longer worry that anything I say could release an onslaught of anger from you and send me reeling, bloodied by your words or your fists.
Because you are no longer there.
But fifteen years was a long time to live with your abuse.
I still find myself in that place from time to time.
And I will forever be trying to heal the brokenness.
Not You
How do you feel about me in someone else’s arms?
Knowing another man lays inside me?
His mouth, his body pressed against mine, his hands all over the places you once touched.
How do you feel about someone else loving what you once had?