the return

what does my love mean to you

i ask myself as we lie here
a small glass heart pressed between my palm and your breast
as we lie here in the bottom of our fragile little boat being tossed around on a stormy sea that suddenly materialized out of someone else's cliche to become our reality

what does my love mean to you

after months of trial by fire that began in glorious phoenix flames and has since been reduced to a slow simmering

months of screaming my love for you through someone else's hoarse throat
months of carefully limping across the tightrope of mindfulness on broken legs, with you my crutch and me gripping tightly to all your splinters

who am i when my truth becomes your whore
my blindness your betrayal
when i find myself screaming as i fall out of the window of pain you threw me through because i failed

because i hurt you
because i always hurt you as i dig the way to our salty seawater grave with my rusty good intentions spade
and your hurt is a storm on a lonely sea when mine
mine is an aching emptiness in a frozen land and a handful of bruises just short of my shirt line
and a fracture inside my head that rumbles right before it quakes right before it brings my house down on top of me right before i'm swallowed by the abyss

what does my love mean to you
why is my love mean to you
what more will i put you through and which parts mark the truth
of me and you?

...

a few days later we're on a plane arguing in hushed tones because the universe is doing it's damnedest to show us just how much things aren't resolved and just how much we haven't evolved

in a moment that can't decide between calling itself cruelty or clarity i make a conscious effort to pretend to be compassionate and soft, the perfect man that you need for me to be
i slide a synthetic human skin over the blades and metal plates around my hand grenade heart and for a minute i sit in limbo, staring at the seat in front of me wondering what it means to fake sincerity as a man so fixated on truth and honesty
and then suddenly, with the slip of a split personality that i forgot that i had learned how to be i'm in;
i'm human again and i remember which one, what kind, how i feel and i realize that i don't recall how long it's been since my last fall
i don't know how long i've been empty and angry and raw and when i say the words
i'm sorry
you're right
i've been defensive and abrasive and abusive
that's when i recall that i'm not allowed to be naked, not in front of you, not even in front of me
because i am not my essence
i am a wrapping of life experience and social cues and intelligence over emotions even though mere animal me never has a clue how to do those things that seem that they should just "come naturally"

my core is fight or flight only
and animal me can't cry but you hold me in your arms and you let my tears roll down your cheeks
and you gift me tender words that i don't feel i deserve and my guilt and my loneliness dissolve away in the salt water
and for the first time in what feels like forever we speak the same language as we float out together from the abyss
and as we kiss
i find my words again

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