I want you to prove me right
secretly
I want you to confirm all the horrible things I think about
I want you to leave me
deem me unlovable

And you didn’t hold the kittens
They held you
In the upstairs of your barn
Behind one of the hay bails

Where summer was endless
lake days
holding hands
Climbing trees
And exploring

All of it made us feel like we never needed anything else
But we didn’t know anything else
Where even in the winter
The wood stove was there to help us keep our sunshine
Warm
And
Excited
Who could run the fastest
Who had the most secrets
We were
Terrified
Of the neighbors dog
And how he tore at our heels
If we weren’t fast enough
We were terrified of our older brothers
And how much our bodies didn’t belong to us

Both our fathers were too loud
And our mothers too meek
We
Were each other’s only escape....


There were red ones
That grew just out of the deer’s reach
Behind the best climbing tree
Littered with pots and pans as high as the eye could see
But the special ones
The yellow ones
Required some adventuring
We braved the feared boundaries by your neighbors where that Rottweiler could reach us
Just for something a little sweeter than what we had
But it was never as scary as going home
We would rather risk the snarling demon
Than go home and hear the screaming
Than go home and go to sleep
Only to wake up
And try to convince ourselves What happened in the night

Was a dream.

....half on, the other half off
I swallowed your lies
We laid next to each other  
Arms around me
Holding me tighter than you ever had before
Back when we were secure
Back when we were together
Now that your hands are forbidden I want them so much more
And I know it’s bad for us
We can not make love where there is no love
And yet
You make me forget
All the repercussions
If only for a few minutes
So this is ***
And now I’m ripping off your shirt
And you’re crying into my shoulder
And I know that it won’t heal us
And I know that we both want it to
But it won’t
And we do it any way
We are not making love
We are having ***
I didn’t know there was a difference
But you cannot make love
Where there is no love.

Medication gave me many things
A brain I could keep up with
A heart that wasn’t always racing
Rest
The ability to get out of bed

It didn’t fix all of me
It took many messy years to get to where I am
But it definitely helps

The only thing it took away
Was writing
A still brain
A calm brain
Is a quiet one indeed
And I like this
I like that I can sleep
But so many nights I stayed up
Writing works that flowed and captured
My pain so perfectly
But is there none left to feel

And without it
Am I me?

You feel a lifetime away
And now so does he
I wonder if this one is next
I’m trying to keep him close
But I’ve done close before
And I know how it ends

I am not confident
I am just naive