I wasn't expecting,
This evening,
To want your presence
And need your warmth
As much as I do.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want you
To encompass me
With complete protection,
Endless protection,
Unwavering protection.
I do and do not want you
To lash out at all who have hurt,
Will hurt.
I want to know that,
Were I standing next to you
With tears running down my cheeks,
That you would hold me still,
Peer deeply into my eyes,
And ask what is wrong.
Draw me into you
If I had no answer.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want you
To cry when I cry.
And I wonder
If there has ever been a time
Where you have wept
Until you felt
You might never stop.
And if not,
How you have lived so long
Without feeling so deeply,
So desperate,
So frightened,
So happy,
So relieved.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want to be
Both strong enough to hold you
And weak enough to be held
Well enough for you to love me,
Sick enough to hear that love
Over and again,
Over and again.
I want you to be
One step ahead,
Tapping into what is coming,
What might hurt,
What might scar,
What might send me reeling
And hurtling backwards.
Tonight I realise
You are here and not here,
How I miss the nights
We will not spend together.
Yet how precious
How sacred
How gentle
Those nights would have had to be,
And anything less
Might have hurt or scarred
Reeling, hurtling.
I trust it would have been nothing less.
And then do not trust.
You fluctuate like a sheet on a line,
Back and forth in the wind.
And though I know why,
I want to take you down
And wrap you tightly around me,
Then lay you upon the bed
And curl into you.
And I'd say,
Hello. I am here.
Life is here.
All worlds are here.
All words are here.
Breath is here.
Reason is here.
Tears and depth,
Life and death,
Hunger and thirst
Light and dark,
Love and love and love -
All here.
Until you broke and wept
And I mended and laughed
Until together we met -
With release
And relief.
Both healed
And ready to grow
A single stem.