These Pages Learn to Think

I'm not easy to love.

Yet you love me like,

it's second nature.

As if you've had centuries to practice.

Almost as if,

a part of you was just...

Lost in an abyss of my own emotion I cry into the bottles where I keep my ocean

It must be harder for you to get to me Then it is for I not to drown at sea

The waves curl White foam crashing over itself again and again

I watch the water Touch the sand Writing about heartbreak in coiled cursive

When you've spent your life in the cold, the first time (and every time there after) you feel a tinge of warmth in your cheeks... It will hurt.

  My wounds are agape and festering. Your skin is salty. When you reach out to heal me, the sting of your touch causes me to withdraw. When you try again, I lash out and cause wounds of my own on your skin.

  You feel that sting from my bite and you know what it is like to be me.

  I can't apologize for that.

Did you know 

that you feel like 

heaven to me?

  Heaven is a place I visited often as a child.

A cabin on a lake that the locals knew about

But the tourists didn't

  I remember so vividly 

That relaxing feeling of freedom 

When the scent of pine needles hit my nose

Oh, and of course, every year

The sign for the resort

that my parents made me stand by so they could take a picture.

  Every picture I am older & I am happy 

Until life got in the way

And we could no longer afford to go.

  As the years went on

Even the most barren parts of my soul

Longed for that feeling

  That feeling I got sitting on the dock, 

listening to the waves crash around me

The smell of a campfire just up the hill

  The way my father smiled

When we took the boat out onto the lake

And I insisted we let every fish we caught go

  How loving my mother's eyes looked 

As they locked with mine

After I came back from a long swim

  It has been so long 

Since that feeling left me

Since my parents left me

  But I have found heaven in your kiss

In the smallest part of your hand

In the way you cradled me when I told you,

  "Did you know 

that you feel like 

"You can fix anything with duct tape!" She said knowingly, as if she had fixed her entire life with it.

I looked at her and honestly could believe her if she said she did.

She, herself, was a patchwork of broken promises and empty apologies. 

By night, I hate my dreams.

By morning, I want nothing more then to return to them.

By day, I feel sick waiting for the sun to set.

feed

your

addiction

  push

pull

scratch

  hate

yourself

  like

I

hate

you

  but

don't

forget

  to

love

your

I sit at my usual place at the bar and order my usual triple-shot espresso.

The usual waiter looks at me like, "Are you serious?"

And I think to myself,

"Well, that should be easy enough. Right?"

But it's never quite that simple, is it?

See, outside the floor to ceiling windows I'm seated in front of, the world is ending.

The wind whips up thick snow in circles, like mini tornadoes tearing through the street. 

The police station next door is the warmest thing in the city, as the people have set it on fire.

They stand outside, pulling their collars up and hiding their frozen tears.

Every other person is tapped on the shoulder by a gust of snow, right before it engulfs them and they disappear.

But I want my coffee, goddamnit. So why is the bartender looking at me like I'm crazy?

"Shouldn't you be with your family right now?"

Oh.

It's been so long since I had one, I forgot that's where most people would go when they were about to die.

I look at him as he passes me my hot drink.

"You're the one working, aren't you?"

He chuckled and wiped the bar down, his eyes refusing to acknowledge the chaos outside.

The people's anger swallowed us both whole when the police station crashed down on our tiny restaurant.

The world's sadness covered us in white blankets.

Last night, I ran with the wolves.

My feet hit the cold hard ground, then my hands.

The wind whipped my hair around my face, frost forming around my nose before I sprouted fur.

It was a slow and painful change, but I felt more like myself as a wolf then I did as a woman.

We ran for hours and I never grew tired.

No destination or intention.

Just running for the sake of running.

Is this my pack now?

I thought I had found my place long before this.

A lone wolf, needing nor wanting anyone else.

The power of many is still pulsing through me, as I sit here the woman I once was.

I found all the nice things you had to say

Hidden among your judgements and snide remarks

I picked the tiniest gems out of the dirt you threw at me

and reveled over how shiny they were

"Not that I don't think you're worthy..."

We both know that in a short time

I'll be better than you ever were

One day

When I meet a younger me

I hope I'm less arrogant then you are

& know when it's time to give praise