I don’t know how to tell you
that I can tell how hard you
are trying
just by the sound of your voice,
it doesn’t rise and fall like
a never ending tide the way
it used to, it doesn’t make me
want to hang up the phone and
jump off of a bridge just so
I could feel like I was killing
one of our demons
before they could ****
one of us.
I don’t know how to show you
how proud of you I am
for going as long as you have
without slipping back into
slow suicide, without going
back to being absent from
my life like you were
before.
I don’t know how to tell you
that what you are doing
for yourself
is also a gift you’re giving to me,
for there is a strange contagiousness
when somebody starts to
take care of themselves.
I don’t know how to tell you
that just because things are getting
better doesn’t mean
that everything is now automatically
okay, because it’s not and
there are still knots that I’ve tied
in between my ribs and the backs
of my eyelids, things I have
promised myself to never give
or tell or show you
ever again.
My heart is thawing and that is
a choice I have made and I am glad
I am making it.
Life is too hard with a hardened
heart but that doesn’t mean
it can thaw overnight.
I can feel it slowly softening
with each passing day,
though I still scare myself
with what I can remember.
Darkness remains
but I am no longer using it
to fill a void.
And I am glad I can look you
in the eye and know
that you’re trying your hardest
to see, to really see
me again.