LADYLUCK

Hold everything very carefully unless it is your lover’s back. Then, become metal, become teeth, do not gentle yourself for any man. Do not change for the ones who think that you should be softer, less mouth, less voice. You do not owe regrowth to anyone but yourself. When they begin to ask for you to shape yourself around them, leave. Shut the door firmly. Do not look back.

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

I want to tell him it was as easy to be with him as it was to eat food or drink water. I want to tell him it was not him but the road that we were travelling that was hard. I want to say his name over and over again.

Are you quiet when you need to be loved? Or do you raise your voice into a lion’s roar? Will you nudge yourself into my hips? Will you bite my shoulders and say ‘I need you to love me harder today’? Are you softer in the mornings? Which side of the bed do you like to take? Do you sprawl yourself out and steal the covers? Do you sleep naked? Do you take your coffee black? In the summer, do you flip the pillow and sigh when your cheek touches the cold side? Do you keep the windows open at night? If so, how? Aren’t you scared of monsters? Do you know that I’m scared of everything that lives in the dark? Are you aware that sometimes I get so nervous I forget how to move my feet? Can you be patient? Can you be gentle? Do you know how? Is there a quiet war raging inside of you? When you curl your fists and raise your chin, are you donning your armour? Can I help? Can I fight all of your demons with you? I won’t shy away from them, not if it would make you happy. Do you know that I’d stand in the dark in an empty room for you? Do you know that I trust you’d never ask that of me? Do you know that I don’t flinch when you cup my face? Even though if you so much as twitched too hard you could break me? Isn’t this what trust looks like? Isn’t it how I am always skin and emotions for you? Isn’t it saying ‘I love you more today than I did yesterday, but it was a whole lot yesterday’? Listen, do you feel safest when you’re holding yourself together? Do you think someday you can let that go? Will you let me take the pieces of you and keep them close? Can you let me love you? Will you learn how to? It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait.

I’m always soft for you, that’s the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say ‘come here, it’s been too long, it felt like home with you.