"Where do I belong?"
I silently ask the stars.
My phone lies dark on the pebbled pavement,
Our routine conversation replaying and
Grating.
I’m too tired to carry the conversation today.
Is this what it will always be like?
"You’re running out of options"
Don’t I know it ma coeur, don’t I know it.
In more ways than one.

Sitting in the driveway of my parents home, listening to the bats and the breeze,
I wonder where I fit.
This is not the first time since being with you I have felt like a puzzle piece with all the wrong edges
And by our love alone we try to make me fit
Despite how awkward I sit in the picture.

It’s moments like these
That happen over and over again
That I have to wonder if what we’re doing is wrong
That our fierce loyalty will be the thing that breaks us
Our unwillingness to let go.
Our fingers bleed and our joints scream
As we cling ever tighter as the tension mounts
Why do you not feel it too?
What is wrong with me? Why can’t the one be you?
I decay when I think of it
And my eyes burn with tears
‘Not ma coeur’ my heart sobs
‘We thought he was here to stay’.

And oh how I love him
Language and words cannot describe.
My desiccated soul finding life in his arms,
Only living because he thought I tasted so alive.

But I love him,
I know that now and I cannot doubt it.
He is my last thought when I sleep, the face of my dreams, the sound to greet me when I wake.
I hear my spirit humming when I’m sleepy breathing by his side,
In strange hours of the morning, the golden shades of him washing over me and smoothing my cares away,
His voice soothes my broken mind and draws me in to stillness,
And the curl of his lips, the lifting of his cheeks, his laugh lifts my sodden feet to flight.

I war, I war
battle worn, I find home and rest in him.
That crescendo of his door, the flood of beckoning golden light,
his silhouette reaching for me, wrapped in deep indigo and evening velvet, to sunless summer.
As i am encompassed about,
He runs his hands over me, like he’s following trails on a map,
He breathes into my hair like he’s smelling the sweetest rose.
He kisses me softly.
I listen to his heart beat, feel the warmth of him against my cheek. He smells like home.

But sometimes he holds me like I’m made of soap and sand,
Like I’ll slip away at any moment.
Sometimes he holds me like he’s too tired to stand, and having me in his arms is too great a chore.
Sometimes he holds me like I’m a stranger made of wood and nails,
rigid and foreign to touch,
Sometimes he holds me like an addict to his bottle,
desperate and unquenchable.
Sometimes he holds me like I am the last story he wants to tell, the only name he wants on his lips, the only future he could ever need.
Ah and those are just some of the times I have to wonder.

Maybe the choice ahead feels so heavy
Because we know where it leads,
Should I choose,
Instead of our love,
To save
Myself.