I only tell you because you've never asked.
I only tell you because I don't think you seem to have the slightest idea of who I am.

Would you believe me if I did tell you?

The only clothes on my body were those of my 4 year old brothers.
The only shoes on my feet were so weathered and torn I could feel the cold concrete with every step I took.
The meals on my plate were only those from the school in which I begged for seconds and dreaded the empty weekend.

Would you believe me if I told you that the only food that filled our cabinets were expired cans given from the food bank.
Dinner time meant hiding under the table, avoiding the drunken blows of Mom's new boyfriend.

Would you even believe me?
Months would go by without water or lights.
Our home was no home.
But a shelter for those who had dragged their bodies to the bed of an 8 year old girl.
My mother was no mother at all but a slave to a chemical mixture.

Would you believe me if I told you?

I fought my fight.
Through blood and tears, I fought my fight.
I chose to stand in the crashing waves against me.
I chose to stand strong with the heaviest weight resting on my shoulders, I fought.
& I won.

Who are you to say what I do with my time here on this earth?
I'm here for one thing and one thing only.

I know this not because of any direction given to me or any set of instructions.

I know this because I can feel it.
I feel it deeply etched into my very soul.
I see it in every set if eyes that are met with mine.
I know it with every life that is whispered in my ears.

I was made to love and nothing else.

To love the broken, the fixed, the hurting and the thriving.

I was made to love.

Without honey we are blind to the sweet richness of its taste.

Just one is all it takes.
Just one taste.

Sweet fragrance fills the room and you can only imagine it on your tongue.
Oh sweet honey, no other stands against you.

I just need a taste.

Most of the time I crave the absence of noise.
No one to speak.
No one to entertain.
Just my mind.
I'm allowed to shut down in the stillness with no need explain.
How hush this moment is.
Even if it is for just the moment.
Let it fill me and melt me.
In the silence I am present.

I cried the entire way home because of you.
Because I had to leave a birthday party because of you.

You've taken a piece of me I'll never ever get back.
You've taken my life away or whatever it was actually.

Your face intrudes my mind and your sharp words pierce my ears over and over again.

It's been 12 years.
12 years.

How have I not forgotten by now?
It's been 12 years.

Because to me it's equivalent to my limbs missing.
You've taken pieces of me that I did not give you permission to take.

And no one stopped you.
It's been 12 years, and I cried the entire way home.

There is no place a can go, no sight I can see, no smell I can recall that doesn't remind me of you

You've ruined me.
You've ruied any sort of childhood I ever had.

You know, my therapist told me that I have so many triggers that my body completely shuts down on a regular bases because it can't handle the memories.
I can't live a normal life because of you.
I can't even sleep because of the the fear you have dyed me with.
I hate you.
I hate you for stealing my life away from me.

I'm home when the only sound kissing my ears is the wind.

I'm home when the only shoes on my feet are rushing grains of sand.

Let the air take me and spin me.

I want to feel the trees on the tips of my fingers and the sap stuck on my palms.

Let the soil of this earth obsorb me and make me whole.

Take me home.

I want to know just how you think.
How you function.
What makes your smile so big it's as if it will never fall.
The corners of your lips turn up so high.
I want to feel you in such a way that I can experience all of your hurts and all of your joys.
What would that be like.
How are you in the silence?
To know another soul so deeply.
So deeply that secrets don't exist and shame isn't present.
To know every dark corner of that mind.
What's it like?

I hesitate to let the bottom of my foot hit this dusty ground.
Every step is blind with no map or direction.
But it's grace that is undeniable and love that is unstoppable.
Onward you whisper, go.
No matter if I'm empty, sinking, or half dead, your hand remains so gentle on the small of my back.

How beautiful you sit.
Returning every night to a love that is unending.
The consistency of your visit is the very reason I live.
The light in the blackness.
The guide to my path.
How gracious and patient you sit only to be recognized for just a moment.
You're a gentleman, Mr. Moon.

Some days suffocating seems easier than breathing.
On those days I can feel the tingle in my toes.
The nots in my stomach.
The ache in my muscles.
The tension in my fist.
I can feel it all.

From the top of my head to the bottom of my feet I ache. Ache for you, for your small whisper. The words that melt me like a candle stick.
Drip by drip I fall.

But just as quickly, my waxy lips learn to breathe again.

"I'm not trying to scare you because I'm scared too"
Squeezing my hands so tightly while dragging me through the cement.
You chant, "Come on now. You can do it."
By this time my road rash has met my brittle bones.
You chant, "Just stop thinking about it" as these tears turn to acid.
I can feel the gravel peeling my skin away.
& you chant, "just get past it" and the ache turns numb. I feel nothing.
"I'm not trying to scare you because I'm scared too."

This isn't easy.
Feeling isn't something familiar to me, yet I'm standing in the center of a broken dam.
Water rushing over me and flipping me from side to side.
I'm suffocating with a grin on my face.
Only so you don't ask if I ever learned to swim.
Of course I have.
No. No, I've never even let the tide kiss my toes.
I breathe in to let the air in my lungs be replaced with this unfamiliarity.
But I'll be ok.

Your teeth shatter everytime you speak.
Your arms break everytime you try to hold me.
Your fingers snap everytime they meet mine.
You are cold and dead.
Finding life only in the darkest of pits.
I'll breath every ounce of air I have into those shriveled lungs of yours.
I'd do anything to see those lips move to the shape of the moon.
To watch the color of your pale skin turn blush.
I'd give anything.

I wish I could fix you.
I wish I could smooth every one of your worry wrinkles.
I wish I could tell you that everything will be ok, and mean it.

But the sadness you carry is deeper than I have ever known.

You are the only hope I have ever lost.
The only need I have always refused.
& the only soul I ever rejected.

Too much of you has withered away.

Your body has become unfamiliar to me.
Our words are only those of distance, desperately searching for conversation.

I feel as though I've never known you.
Your face is not a mothers, but a sad & broken stranger.

I just wish I could fix you.

It's as if I can feel every cell of my being illuminating.
Everything my fingers touch is electrifying.
My face aches from the corners of my lips relentlessly kissing the lobes of my ears.
Every word spilling from mouth is as dire as the need for air in my lungs.
My body is restless and weightless.
There is no euphoria I can't reach.
No amount of ecstasy I can't handle.
Complete bliss, if only for the moment.
Just as quickly as this paradise was built, even faster it disintegrates.

I refuse to delight in the things that bring me so much pain.
Though it seems to be the only consistency in this constant running scheme.
I go & it come.
I come & it stays.
You haunt my only made up fantasy of ecstasy.
If I can't delight in you, you refuse to delight in anything.
I'm so tired of you.

I've held the hands of ****** addicts.
I've kissed the faces of prostitutes.
I've hugged the bodies of the most broken.

To walk amongst the dead is where I belong.
To hold the fingers of lifeless flesh is the only thing these hands know to do.

Let me show you a love you've never known to exist.
Let me tell you about a life you've only dreamed about.

I'll glue every piece of your shattered body together.
No matter how much blood drips from these hands, I'll mend every sharp edge.

The scars on these hands will remind me of every soul I've been stitched with.

These deep, stretched, alluring scars.

Staring at every corner of your face.
Your eyelids shut so tightly.
The edges of your lips so still.
I crave to know what's in that brain.
You rest so still, as if you have never known of any living hell.
As if you've never heard of the battle.
The war partaking so constantly inside of me.
I am so envious of your nights.
My home is sleepless.
As far from your familiarity as possible.

Stop these words.
These meaningless, nonsensical words.
As my mind races I hold my hands out trying to catch any falling letter.
As if I'm drowning, I choke on the logic spilling from my lips.

I’ve never known an emotion like this.
One that makes my stomach flip.
My hair stand up.
My body turn to ice.
One that turns my mind to mush.
The constant static in my thoughts disappears and silence over whelms my being.
I can feel my stomach crawling up my chest and into my throat.
My planted feet become so weak as i try and grip so tightly on reality.
“It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.” i keep chanting to myself, trying to find some glimpse of victory over this crippling impression.