It is often in the most mundane moments that I am caught by sense of perspective altering awareness.  Awareness of the ache in my toes from straining to see through the window of what might one day be.  Awareness of the truly humbling way that life can take everything away, leave you sweating against the rock floor, only to show you the beauty in having enough strength to pull yourself back into the light. Awareness of the gratitude that pulses in my veins for the people I have landed amongst.  It is here, in these moments, with pressure reminiscent of hope, disbelief, and wary elation expanding against my rib cage, declarations of affection catching in my throat, that the floors drop.  Endless free fall is the only capacity within which I understand what it means to adore another.  With feet firmly on the ground, I'm guaranteed to lose my way.

I plucked words from your mouth like petals from a flower and let them settle in between my bones. So that when you stumble home with fire in your fists, your once-soft " I love you"s would soothe my aching skeleton from the inside out. But petals often wither, and their silk touch turns to dust, and these days you don't say "I love you" to replace the ones I've lost.

You can't fall in love during the summer. There are no shivering hands or burnt tongues or worn out coats. Sandy beaches are a poor substitute for autumn leaves, especially in the Midwest, and the heat will burn out new passion much too quickly. Love requires coughing on bonfire smoke and learning the difference between grey skies and rain.

You can't fall in love during the summer, but that's when I met you, and I think I'm starting to realize that not every rule is made to be broken, but every broken rule is made with consequences.

You can't fall in love during the summer, I know because we tried, and look where that choice has landed us.

For as long as I can remember,
I've been practicing safety drills.
school, home, the work place, even planes.

Everyone wants to be prepared
for those so-called natural disasters.
It's stunning how they never think to
prepare you for heart break.
It's so much more common.

You are the earthquake that has me
braced for an aftershock. I am hiding
under doorways, diving for the protection
of restaurant tables. My survival kit
is fresh out of healing, and my wounds are
growing agitated. Why wasn't I prepared for this?

Algebra and Grammar won't help me
get out of bed tomorrow morning.
Testing door handles to see if they are hot
will only keep me away from flesh wounds.
Zoology taught my to dissect a frog,
but your vital organs are so much harder to locate.

Is there even a heart inside your chest?

Some things exist behind curtains of experience.  

Those whose tongues have
tasted the holy fire know the touch
of something divine.

Those who have laid eyes on
their sleeping bodies, and walked
away to places unknown, can grasp
the idea of an inbetween.

Those who have groped in the darkness
for something to believe in again, who
have longingly looked over the cliff edge,
know that true despair does exist.

As for me,

I know that true fear can
come in the form of footsteps
behind you on the empty street.

The person at the bar who insists on
hollow compliments and free drinks.

Friends who scoff at your anger for
men who yell out their passenger side
windows about the treasures beneath
your clothes.

True fear can come in the middle
of the afternoon, as you face
off against the four floor staircase
to your apartment, when your steps
are echoed by the man in 2b who has
a wife, son, and a taste for resistance.

Don't tell me I'm overreacting,
when the single most terrifying thing
I can do is walk alone under the street lamps.

Don't tell me I'm too uptight just
because I've learned that flattery
can come with a horrifying price tag.

Don't tell me I'm wrong just
because you don't understand.

Look me in the eye when you have
waited until a security guard can walk you
to your car.  When you have held your
breath in a shared elevator.  When you have
lowered your eyes to the men who yell
obscenities at you, because standing up
for yourself could prove deadly.  

Look me in the eye when you have held back
the curtain of experience, and walked in the shoes
of someone who lives every moment knowing
this could be the day someone decides to steal
from me what is only mine to give.

Then look me in the eye when you tell
someone of your wound, and they reprimand
you for daring to walk this world as a woman.

We are not light switches
Our relationship should not be off and on
If you want me
Let me know
If you do not want me
Let me know

And then..

And then he calls me baby,
As he places gently one hand along the right side of my waist
Pulling me into himself
Placing his forehead down upon mine so that he can look me directly into my eyes
Returning the stare with his big brown eyes
Letting me know that right now?
We're on.
Making me believe that this time, we might be on forever

And then..

And then he kisses me, and I’m sure
My body eases up from the tense stance I took in order to back up the seriousness in my voice, starting from my shoulders,
making it’s way down to my knees
I am weak
He knows what to do when we do what it do.

But in the morning...
He wakes up and he...
He doesn’t kiss me like he did the night before when he knew he was wrong, when he convinced me over and over that this time,
we were on

I roll over and let my feet dangle a few inches from the floor,
My body draped in the blanket that held last nights secrets and wasted tears...



The sun shines through the window and onto my skin

.
There's a certain darkness in the light it provides...

I feel it.
We're off again.

Your words are impactful because you only speak them when deemed necessary by your spirit. You never speak to hear yourself, and you never listen without hearing. When you talk your eyes wander... I think it's inside of yourself that you look. You always seem to go deeper than the surface of your thoughts. You understand that the last piece holds more value than the first.

You always crave more and in your silence I know there is searching.

Even in your silence there is life.

I wonder sometimes, if you see the warm blue light that encompasses your spirit. Ready for embrace. Calm and swiftly moving, steadily with peace, holding many of the same characteristics of a river. Smoothing over the jagged rocks that you come across. Whether they be people or situations.

Bursting at the seams with humility, you are love at it's finest point of being, you're G-ds example of the fact that love is living. That He is living. For He is love...

By that I am amazed.

Thank you.

I was in an abusive relationship once.. But it was a bit different.

You see, he was always the last thing on my mind before I went to sleep, and the first thing on my mind when I woke up.

He used to kiss me softly every night before I went to sleep.

He used to wake me up gently in the mornings and make me breakfast. He would run my bath water to the perfect temperature.

He used to escort me to the bus stop before work when the sun was yet to relieve the night sky of its shift.

He was always there. He lived in my mind and that's where he birthed complacency.

His first name was What, and his last name was If.

He never gave me time to myself, he never let me speak.

I tried to walk out on him. I swear I did, but he'd visit me at 4 a.m. and I would simply let him in. He would keep me up all night, forcing himself on me... In me. He wouldn't leave when I cried get out.

I was in an abusive relationship once, as scary as it is, I might still be.

All this time I thought it was a man, but what if, What If is a she?

What if all this time it was myself?

I've finally came to see.

What if all this time, What If is really me?

Every minute without a word from you, was a reminder that you were thinking of someone else.

And every hour was another reason why I understood.

And every day caused another piece of me to go numb without your touch.

And every week reopened the wounds I had stitched up with your smiles.

And as the months have broken me down, I realize soon there will be nothing left to break.