The wallpaper peels in places that have held the touch of too many hands,
and the floorboard of the 4th step creaks under the weight of my return.
The shutters won’t shut
The locks won’t lock
The hallway echoes Christmases past, long nights at work, and warm embraces when friends visit.
There are words on the tip of your tongue, and none of them are for me.
“You can’t come home anymore”
There are those nights when hours pass by slowly yet before you know it, the sun will be creeping up and you still don’t know what to say or how you are supposed to feel and you just wish there was an owner’s manual for a broken heart because the warranty is up and baby, your love was defective.
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I go back and forth about if it is acceptable for me to say anything. How if I was a good friend, I’d disregard your disregard and just dive right into the mess of this all. I see your pain and the bruises on your soul look so familiar, but I feel like I am overstepping my boundaries if I offer a band-aid. I cant force you to face your demons, but I can take the initiative because Lord knows at the rate you’re going, no one is getting out of this alive.
Hold on to your heart and expose the curve of your spine. The air is cool on the skin as fingertips shed light to the soul’s desire. This is one dream you can’t shake.
I usually don’t fuss about the way my body naturally cadences, but when you’re around, I become hyper sensitive to the sway of my hips, the weight of each footstep, how my thighs never touch as they move back and forth, back and forth. I am aware my posture is hunched and my movement awkward. I am drawn to the arch of my back and the small pools I could collect. I am more one with myself than I ever have or will be.
I grab shirts. I am a shirt grabber. I never noticed it before, but with your arm around me, I would clutch at fabric just to have something to hold on to. I was never aware of this until the day you grabbed my shirt back. I was instantly thrown off guard and found this movement foreign, offensive even to our normal way of walking. The gesture seemed over-dramatic and overexerted; something much larger than intended. But I still didn’t recognize it as my own. And isn’t that just how it is with our flaws and shortcomings, our quirks and pleasures? We never notice it in ourselves, or maybe we do but it seems minute and diminutive in the grand scheme of all that makes us who we are. It isn’t until we see the same exact blemishes and celebrations in someone else, someone we hold dear, that it becomes a huge looming something in our hearts. But this is not our battle, it is someone else’s. When will we recognize that we are the shirt grabbers? That we serve as the example?
My words are careful and quiet.
I’ve always been a free-spirit-lay-in-the-grass-and-watch-the-clouds kind of girl. You’ve always been a bit more serious; the kind of man who wants to be able to touchfeelseesmell his results. But under that strong exterior lies a man with the most beautiful dreams I have ever seen. There’s little difference: you and I. Except I find my peace in balance; I try to level every aspect of my life because if I can’t run that mile, my heart can’t run free and if I don’t know the answer to that question, well then nothing else in the world really makes much sense. You however, you are different. You throw yourself passionately into one thing at a time and hope to God everything else falls into place. But somewhere along the way you lose sight of your family, or the work you need to do, or the love you have gone without tending to and more often than not you get angry, and burned out, and you allow whatever beautiful thing you were so close to achieving go up in flames until the next new passion comes along. I know this because I’ve seen it. I know this because I used to be the same. So take my hand dear; step up on the balance beam. I promise I won’t let go of your hand if you promise you’ll follow my lead. You can have it all. You just have to put one foot in front of the other, toes first, and never, ever, ever look down.
Every single night I dream of hands, fingernails, lips, soft hair, arms and legs playing a soft tug of war with the early morning sun. We are explorers, leaving no stone unturned.
