This world is so hard.
But the place between us. The place where our hearts and bodies touch is so soft.
That is the place where our love lies.
And love, real love is rare and holy.
We treat it with reverence, foreheads touching, breath aligned, and hands clasped together.
Our hearts hold the space.
In this place, it is only you and me.
I love making you blush with intimate words whispered in your ear.
The power to make you tremble.
You knowing my carnal expressions quietly spoken are promises kept between us.
Laying in the snow, held by the cold depth of the bank,
I look up.
Big sparkly flakes are falling from the sky.
The wind blowing them in a silent choreographed dance.
Mesmerizing.
They melt on my face and wash away the tears.
This place, the place I call home, is magical.
I soften into the moment and breathe.
Home. I am lonely, quiet, and alone. Inside, the silence is loud, and thoughts are unrelentingly assaulting my brain. Outside, the noise of life moving is too overwhelming and hurts my ears.
On the trail, running. Concentrating on my footfalls, I try to run down the thoughts in my head. I’m sweating and breathing. The sky is beautiful, blue, and full of pure white clouds. The woods, starting to steam from the summer heat, smell of Earth and damp. It is comforting.
I drive slow. I listen intently to the classical music coming from the car radio. Music often hurts, lyrics are too much, but silence is deafening.
I’m standing on one foot, looking in the refrigerator and cupboards.
I’m not actually hungry. I never am anymore. Food is tasteless. I take some bites anyway.
Kneeling on the bathroom floor. I am pleading with myself to keep the food in, keep it down. My body ignores my pleas.
The pain of retching, the burning in my throat. Tears in my eyes from the violence of it all.
I’m shaky and broken. I suffer in my sickness, in a deep hole of despair.
The cracks in our hearts.
The wounds that open easily or never heal.
Our scars. The shiny raised roads, pathways of our journeys.
Our bodies. All the places we’ve been touched with love and struck in violence. The invisible marks and the bruises that make us beautiful.
These are the parts of us to be held gently.
The rawness and vulnerability we hide are the places where our light starts.
Light shining through the cracks in our hearts.
Light surrounding our wounds.
The light we hold within holds us gently.
Gently, because we are all broken beings of light.
What will become of them when I am gone?
All the love and passion that poured out of me put on paper.
The inner workings of my heart expressed through my handwriting.
All for you.
The piles of pages of writings I gave to you.
Love Letters.
Will you put them in a box and stow them away under your bed?
Out of sight and out of mind.
Will you remember you have those declarations of love, my heart laid bare on paper, hidden away? Will they gather dust until you move and are forced to decide what to do with them?
Will you even keep them?
Will you burn them and watch the ashes be carried off by the wind, or will you simply drop them in the recycling bin and walk away.
Once I asked you for them back. Explaining the thought of you destroying them was too much for me to bear.
And you almost handed them over.
But you stood there, overfilled bag in hand, in front of me.
You couldn’t do it. You refused to give them back.
You closed your eyes, shook your head, and pulled them into your chest.
I had to let them go.
I wrote the love letters to you. Just for you.
I may never know what becomes of them, but they are yours.
Gravity is stronger than me.
I fell hard.
My heart was running wild and flying high with its insistence that love is the key.
The way it all works.
As I fell, I realized not everyone gets a happily ever after.
As my body hit the ground, shattering my whole being, it became clear.
Two people in love is not enough.
And in those moments of brokenness, Gravity pulled down my belief that love is all you need and smashed it.
I see now.
Love will always be above my reach.
Gravity will always win.
It can be done.
I say those words out loud to myself.
It’s the thought that’s been dancing in my head for a while.
Shifting.
Changing something in a tiny way and altering the path.
Small shifts.
No grand sweeping changes. Those are too overwhelming.
No changing mindsets or feelings. That is too forced. That cannot happen overnight.
Shifting.
Saying no one time instead of yes.
Quietly and with love choosing what is best for me at that moment.
Allowing space to mourn the past but recognize one thought about the future.
With each small shift, walking a path close to the one I’m on, but slightly different.
Shifting from time to time, altering my journey.
Shifting until one day, I have walked away from who I was and have become who I am supposed to be.
Step inside.
Love me quietly, love me gently.
Take what I offer and give all you can.
I will not turn you away. You are beautiful.
Open yourself to me, bare and raw.
Let me love you, quietly and gently.
I break the ground with my hands.
Digging deeper, I smell the secret sacred place the Earth keeps hidden.
I pause to dump a pile of dirt in my hair, running my fingers from top to bottom and smearing my face to make a protective mask.
I dig until the hole is big enough to hold my body.
I crawl in and bury myself.
The tears come.
Watering the soil around me, I feel safe inside the womb of my Mother.
I feel the vibration of life.
Supported by her roots, I cry until I fall asleep.
I wake in the morning, emerging from my hiding place, renewed.
I kneel, fill the hole, kiss the ground, and whisper prayers of thanks.
I am hopeful, as time passes, flowers will grow from the pain I left within the Earth.
Blooming as proof that we survive even the worst pain.