#boywhohidesbehindthickwallsofglass

I can feel my brain

Trying to expunge your all.

My second holes bleed So I put in long-term hoops Because he likes more.

Incentive to sweat:   His hands the size of my back Or maybe bigger.

I'm over the moon 

Even though I cannot see it

The clouds are so dark

And thick like promises

To reveal glorious splendor 

Could be a breath of fresh air

For our lungs that need it most

Clarity is not just something valued by the eyes

Rather it is felt in those souls

That need to love someone

Stretches beyond self pity

The care that crushes selflessness 

It's all I could help but feel towards him

Who dares and coos to call me "only"

Just saw this! Sorry dear. Yes, I would be more than happy to explain Second Workout, or any of my other writing for that matter. Just fair warning though, you’ve opened quite the can of worms with this one. Haha

I am currently in a long distance relationship. My boyfriend and I are separated by 4,158 miles, an Atlantic ocean, a foggy job, a 6 hour time zone difference, and a school full of heavy drinkers. We usually only have enough time for about 5 hours of messaging a day, and we fit in one Skype call about every week and half, if we’re lucky. Because time is of the essence our communication must be super-saturated and intentional. And this gets exhausting.

Being articulate all of the time and at such a distance is literally impossible. We trip on our words. We get tangled in laptop charger chords. There are no steadying hands. There is no kissing boo boos. Pixilation and tears obscure visibility. 

On this particular night we were having a multilayered, multifaceted disagreement, complicated by our upbringings, laced in a fear of the Lord, weighed down by sin, and clouded over by gender-specific lenses. I was wracked with shakiness and he was shrugging it off. Both involve too much movement and no hope for balance. In short, I was upset. 

I decided to silently vent by writing down, line by line, what I knew I was feeling. I began with a truth, and followed with my discomforts. He couldn’t hear me. He pushed past my trembles with avoiding smiles. He sprinkled the conversation with irrelevant things that he knows I like, set down like speed bumps of distraction. And I was having a hard time digesting it. 

But when I went back to review what I had written, all I could read was, “You are selfish.” And I am. 

Women are made to nurture and love and lift up and fuel and nourish. The second we begin to starve the love out of our partner, hungered by our own insecurities, we should know something is wrong on a near skeletomuscular level.  

So I went back through, line by line, and for every truth, and in equal syllables, I followed with my appreciation. In doing so, I remembered that for every twinge of uncertainty, there is, at the very least and in every instance, equal parts comfort and calm. He extends, continually, great gestures of affection. He encourages what we mutually love. He thinks I’m precious. He, every day, painstakingly carves out time, and lays it down at the feet of a selfish little girl who up and left the country.

And expressing his goodness was so effortless. 

And just like that, all of my frustration evaporated. 

I am so blessed to be found in his favor. I am so fortunate to be looked after with such intent perfectionism. He is so patient. He is impervious to hysteria. I am continually amazed by how eagerly he will run, so fast and long, to close a 4,158 mile gap. 

He is so good for me, healthy, like sustenance and light. 

We are just one day shy of 3 months deep And tonight he cannot hear me. Our long days only overlap by 18 hours And in those days I am drown and he is evaporated. My anxiety snips me shorter While he slap-happy tramples me.  I’ve seen my mom resent my da with cookies But at least we all know Da’s brilliant.  I do not know when the woman’s opinion sighs its last But all the while he sends me vintage white noise.  Cash means claustrophobia  But his ears are stuffed with cotton.  I wring my hands raw and look up through my hair But the prescription on his glasses has expired. 

He's a good writer,

But he loves theology,