When your brain knows an edge isn't safe
How do you tell your heart to back away?

Getting to know you has been a
Slow burn
Warm, glorious, steady but a little bit uncertain.
But I worry that the cord that's burning
Is a fuse
And soon you'll blow my world apart
For better
Or for worse.

I'm from the South, see,
So I spent my childhood in a church and,
Though I may not know much about religion,
Through the years I
Learned some things.

I want to worship your body
Like the men and women raising their
Thanks to the Lord on a Sunday morning
Until I've got you murmuring
"Hallelujah..."

You ask me
"What does it feel like
To sit around waiting for the person who you know is going to hurt you
To go ahead and get on with it?"

Have you ever tried to pretend your heart
Is a pebble at the bottom of a fast flowing river,
Cold?
Have you ever imagined it as the backside of the mirror
Where you stare yourself in the eyes
Trying to talk yourself back up,
Hard
Reflective
Insincere?
Have you ever thought what it would be like
To be the darkest part of the mountainscape
In that painting in your living room
Where you sit on your couch
Taking breaths,
Distant
But so so here.
And real.
And aching.
And bleeding.
Have you ever tried to control the cosmos?

Her gaze naturally shifts to the clear blue skies.
Is that how her eyes found mine?

I had someone once.
Someone I'd give up dreams for.
Someone I'd think about kids for.
Someone for whom I'd change my forever.
I do not have her anymore
But now
In this fear that my forever
May be drastically changed
From some other power's volition.
In this terror that my body and my brain
May have turned against me.
In this land of unknowns
Of maybes
Of "we'll have to see"s
She is still the one I want to tell.
And the one who might not even care.

Three years later
I finally answered the phone.
The still recognizable voice of the 14.5 cigarettes a day that she's become said
"I'm sorry."
Nothing else.
We sat on the line in silence
For a time.
It was all I'd been wanting.