“I’m not really precious with it when I’m attracted to the person”

what if I am

what if it’s precious

soft

careful, mindful

soft voices

warm hands

None of these cold hands on exposed skin.

Under the big light

By the G train.

“I’m not really precious with it”

how do I tell you that I need to be treated Precious

Ellen drunk texted me the night before last. We talked for a while. She said she thinks about me every night before she falls asleep. She told me she still loves me. She told me everything I always needed to hear. And I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t feel it. And that makes me so desperately sad.

You are imbedded in my life like twine and wire.

I pull you out like splinters,

but I keep the fragments in a box under my bed

The socks she gave me have a hole in them. I turn them inside out to wear them, Right side out is too much to bear. I know these will be the last thing she will ever give me. The comfort is all I miss. If I repeat that enough maybe it will become true. Those hands I would know from anywhere Those eyes I could look into forever. Riverbeds, A place I once called home. I’m homesick for things I know I cannot have. Some of them died in an airport parking lot and I identified the body as it lay on sheets that looked like mine.

She’s still out in the world. Those eyes still see Those hands still hold. Her heart still loves. If I’m still something it does Then I can count myself lucky. New memories can’t be made, We both know that. We don’t know how much the other Thinks about that.

In the church of my chest she’s the archways, Reminiscent of blue tile and the call to prayer. She wanted to be the alter to which I prayed She wanted me to be on my knees.

Laying back remembering how to close my eyes.

The smell of the grass and the breeze runs past me.

I just want to call my dad.

My past love was in the city last week

And for the first time she didn’t call me.

In therapy my voice broke when I said

What if I never see her again?

We could run into each other,

Both holding the hands of another.

I’d know her eyes from anywhere,

Her hands have been in my dreams for years.

I’m terrified at the thought.

I can’t tell if I’m keeping myself from good things. A poem runs through my head I read as a child. “I’d rather be a tall ugly weed” That’s what stuck with me. Wild and free. I’m swaying in the breeze and I can feel where my strength ends. Therapy is hard and I’m learning who left marks on me, Bone deep. It’s hard to change a cracked foundation. I can be a weed, But it makes me cling harder into the cracks knowing I’m alone. Every time a hand reaches towards me I assume it will hurt. And if it doesn’t it means I don’t care.

When someone asks, “ready?” when they see their lover walking towards them.

Memories catch me off guard and I see her blurred face rushing in to kiss me. There’s no solidity to being in love, And no one ever tells you that. There are no boundaries or punctuation, You’re not in it or you’re not. When she cancelled our plan to meet she turned down the lights. There’s so much space between us among us for us through us and she’s still like feeling sunlight warming my cheeks.

There’s a green velvet sofa and one of those old cracked mirrors in the living room of my chest mocking me. My arms are out like a child, wondering why my father is keeping me waiting. There are dark trees reaching away from me, how do they know which direction to grow? There was a woman I once knew who got angry when I didn’t want her, and never wanted to hear that she left me when I did. There was a woman I once knew that told me I would be nothing but used and when I believed her I made it true. I was sure of this woman in a way that I’ve only felt for the rising sun, and she left me during the night before it rose. I can’t seem to be sure of anything else now. I’m sure my father is dead, because I’m tucked into his coat, wrapping it tight so it feels like a hug. Was I good to that woman? Less sure. I knew that woman well once, and now not all. More sure. Strangers are dangerous people. I learned that from my mother. I get overwhelmed with grief when I think of who’s a stranger to me now.

How many times can you tell me that you don’t feel enough for me?

April 26th, 2019. same place as last time.