Now
everything is heavier,
every
single
word
you say
delivered like bullets from a gun, sometimes hammered across
but always
tugging on your weak heart
bringing it
up
through the tight confines of your muscular oesophagus,
spewing bits, spluttering, shooting flecks at my face.

You bleed and you gush and you push all
of these words
out
onto me so that you
can breathe
again
for just a second.

What you don't
see
is that you've hurled a
mass
at me,
your blood staining my chest
and the back of my hands as I wipe it off my cheeks.

You are so passionate
about your pain.

It is not the issues that I tally,
it is your negativity
- your darkness -
the way you lap up the dramatic twists and live in this
disgusting
suspense
because a stressful state is the natural habitat
of your battered heart.

I am fighting here.
I am fighting to not let your way become mine,
to fill my heart with a light that defies your darkness,
accepting that I cannot save you
as you would contest the safety of my flame or you would contain a candle lit
for you
only to suffocate it -
just as you do yourself.
Maybe it is all you know.
Maybe it reminds you that you are alive.

But I'm not looking for painful reminders of existence,
I want to live.

I love you.
I am terribly afraid
I have lost
you within yourself to yourself
and now only you can
save yourself.

Forgive me for finding joy in between
your hurling -
in moments of silence
in your arms.