I am tired of having a broken back
Dragged down by deadweights
Arms sore,
Trembling at the touch of an empty room
Bruised legs,
From a brief brushing of a desire.
All making the house of my very being
Built on top of that same broken back
Constructed with these very sore arms
The floors in this home creak,
No foundation
After the flood that wiped it all away.
Now that winter has settled in, it is all frozen.
I have burned the walls of my soul in the process of hope,
And while building this home,
I have been choked by the hands of trust
Strangled by the notion that we can live in the rooms of people,
Safe from the wind on a January night.
I wish I could say I have never broken my own heart,
That I have not wandered the halls of those who have left,
Searching for some secret key that would magically open some hidden corridor,
Bringing me back.
I will not pretend that I have not taken a spill on frozen glass,
And been engulfed by the warmth of a fireplace,
So mesmerized that I could not see the home around me disintegrating.
I have been held by the arms of those flames,
Caressed by a fall on ice,
That seemed like water at the time.
Making me blind to the fact that you can not have soothing water,
On a freezing day.
Drowning my rooms with empty words,
The same blindness that allowed the fire to swallow all that I was
I always assumed this fire could melt the ice.
But I kept them in separate closets,
Breaking the locks on the doors that my tired fingers placed on hinges.
Separating any possibility of a marriage of the two.
Because in these barren halls,
I am either burning hot, scorching passion of marked desire.
Or I am solid, dry-ice, painful to the touch
Sending out warning signs to leave,
Because why stay when the closest you can get is an arms length away.
I can not be both fire and ice.
But I will try.
