im not used to writing out loud

may i never get to touch, the things i want i'm not sure who i would be after

each year we learn softness again how to find the cracks in our defenses and let the air filter through we’ve built a fortress for a reason but we have the keys to the gate we will let in kindness

forgetting you is, remembering how much love i have in my heart for the things you expected me to hate remembering that i shouldn't have to apologise for living it's relearning how to trust people, cautiously and okay, listening to songs you loved still sometimes makes me shudder i'm trying to be able to touch those scars without flinching, you don't deserve my remembrance, my old reverence of the way your words would frame things so pretty and sad thing is, you took so many things,  and i trusted that you would hold them soft i became a wall to lean on, tired and unacknowledged  feeling trapped in your love being the last picked for your team was hard to swallow oh, i was never allowed my own vulnerability everything was steeped in the shadows you cast and these things were hurts that happen to other people i wouldn't give any of it a name, but it had one now, i think about how avoidance became my favourite tactic  and how when i left, i still loved you it's funny how we make excuses for people who don't deserve them i understand better now, how deep this all was in the end, you ruined so many things, and left tattered so many stories a one man war, against each person who cared too deeply i hate the word victim, when all i know is survivors you didn't break us wholly but hey, the conflict of my heart is settled now i'm stronger for it, despite the devastation you left my only regret is the length of time it took to put words to my anger i could have covered the distance you put me at, even with blunted claws and, one day you'll be the most minor of footnotes in my story a lesson i learned, and a mistake i won't dare make again so thanks, for nothing but that

clenching my teeth against this unwanted invasion your memories still stick in my head like old gum, gathering dirt on the unseen underbelly of the subway seats i push past the fog of them  create new associations, listen to the music you love and find better meaning one day you will have nothing of me the cleaners will finally scrape you clean from my insides i will breathe and not think of how somewhere, you do too

it starts soft and involved, we’re constant and mostly happy even when our fists are clenched and we talk through tears. looking back it seems rose-toned that i remember things this way it shifts so easily,underneath my feet. it’s hard to pinpoint when things change, because i convinced myself so quickly that it was okay. i am fine. i still struggle.

you never dreamed - this startled breath caught suspended between two forces undeniable and tender you tremble on their fingertips their tongues wrapped around golden syllables murmured against the evening light being lovingly rendered, dark and aching into the inner seam of your thighs, the shuddering rise of your chest, the delicate arch of your neck upon which the hands of both moon and stars  rest you never hoped - these humble galaxies could be yours

to use hands brought up clenched to make something of himself from out under a shadow so dense source of light casting blackness too deep source of light so bright it casts blackness too deep source of light too bright to ever cast against and measure up his own light, pinprick light dark deep enough to swallow him whole to use hands brought up trembling to pull himself from out under shadow cast embedded with dirt so ingrained he may never be clean again enough, enough, not enough he needs to be enough what's enough to use hands brought up protecting to forge a path dig in for courage hold delicate push up and out to meet the light equally and pull out from shadows cast

i. you paint me as survival integral to being ii. i am forgiveness soft and hopeful the warmth of home iii. i am a double sided coin to turn to you in your need watching you ask for things impossible to freely give iv. there is a hunger to survival i know you know we know it well v. i am no mercy there is no absolution you have your own feet i ask that you use them vi. together we have found warmth without me you feel to stumble to the flames you lean too much now to stand alone but you will learn again vii. i am survival, but i am not yours i cannot give what i have viii. we were leaning/learning ix. i am finding my feet

i dont know yet how to let my feelings bubble out of my mouth into words of awe  but know that theyre there

how am i supposed to know where i stand when all the ground youve given me is wracked with shivering tremors it recedes from where we first washed up on the sand, clinging to one another the waves continue [coming] bringing with them more and more we've survived together either side of an island we both find hard to cross this is no longer an ebb and flow but sand cut with glass shifting shifting under my once unmarred feet where i stand is mistaken for solid ground the earth moving beneath, unseen but felt every aching moment i am losing ground even still i wish to still it even for a moment but we reach, we reach for nothing we can hold i am shivering in the salt wind

you are afraid of being cast in shadow of being left behind but above all, of never knowing his warmth there is a war within you both , unseen and unresolved and you might never know that you light along all his edges, to create silver linings with your soft, sure glow but the way he lights each of your dark moments illuminating again, another path forward might just be enough in this life you are half-gods in this half-light, falling from grace and your fingers are instruments of war, gentled for him you touch him, soft, and know this is the moment that you hold the sun in your open palm you are afraid,  of being burned of being lost to this but above all, of never knowing that the risk  of hurtling toward earth, scorched was worth it and you say that you’re no icarus, but you would fly to him again and again

heal, and let heal we're still here regardless of; the hurt, the hell, the shaking at 1am when we spill secrets the changes a tip of a hat in acknowledgement to our cold hands, and a lock box for everything that needs time things that need shadow to breathe, things that need space to grow we can come around here again when the bushes need pruning i admit to my relentless optimism, despite all given reasons hanging on hope, holding it because you can't sometimes heal, and let heal i hope we can stick it out

i put my hands under the shower spray cupped together, side by side and think that at least there’s something here that i can let slip between my fingers let go as if it were all okay still we’re sitting on a precipice and i’ve never liked heights as much as i like fence sitting but you do and this is compromise i guess we’re not Okay but i feel lucky all the same to walk these lines with you, to hold your hand soft even when we don’t feel so safe