I loved you.
I really ******* loved you.
I bled myself dry for you,
gave up my power to you.
I got intimate with anxiety - for you.
Some days,
all I swallowed was the words I wanted to say to you,
and **** did they fill me up.
But somehow
I still shrunk - for you.
You have this way of making things small and
silent.
But loud are the lies you told,
the secrets you kept,
the words you said to her on repeat in my head.
Loud is the sound of her name coming out of your mouth
and I pray you never forget the taste of my love on your tongue,
how pure and sweet it was.
I was left with bitterness
but I vow to not that pass that on.
Loud is the holiness of when I said,
“I forgive you,”
and I meant that with my whole chest,
still tender and swollen.
You are the snake,
but now my body holds your poison.
I vow to not pass it on.
I know how to make myself clean again,
how to regenerate from the death of the woman I was
when I was in love.
And please,
I beg,
keep that love.
I know that you need it,
so void of peace and full of demons.
Keep that love,
because even though you drained my cup,
I’m steady refilling it back up.
Loud is my reclamation-
it’s my turn to speak now.
I hold my peace,
I let you in and thought you robbed that from me.
But I was wrong-
you didn’t take anything.
Never loved me hard enough,
but **** did you break me.
But you see,
the way I put myself back together is biblical,
my blood a scripture,
and I pray when it leaves me each month that you will too.
My dark days are over -
I know how to alchemize grief,
fed my demons so they no longer have to feed off me.
I know you can’t say the same
so I pray for you, too.
When the morning sky brought me to tears
I breathed in that beauty and blew a kiss of it to you.
I pray that my love lives inside of you
so you never forget what a great woman is
and learn to respect it,
honor it,
cherish it,
treasure it,
Because this one -
she’s gone with the wind.
Loud is the echo of my grandmother’s death bed words it carries,
“Danny, it’s all love,”
and I held that standard.
Pulled the knife from my back
and laid that weapon to rest,
held back the urge to drive it into your chest,
I vow not to pass this pain back to you.
There’s already so many wounds,
and I tried to lick them clean.
All they did was infect me.
Loud are the heaving cries you will never hear,
the moments of ecstatic release you will never feel.
But louder,
louder is my remembrance of what it means to be loved-
Dear Danny,
The way you love could put the Sun to shame.
The way you love is something holy.
Dear Danny,
To be loved by you is to know some type of God exists.
Dear Danny,
The way you love,
with ferocity and grace,
let it always be your standard.
Dear Danny,
Your love is the loudest thing you carry,
don’t ever let anyone make you silent.
Dear Danny,
don’t worry…
I love you in all the ways he never could.