Albeit Slowly
It was always me, me, simply me. It was always hands of steel and voice of a dragon’s breath and empty cookie jars and years of horror. And me. And me against the air and me taking care of the ones who were meant to take care of me and me alone beneath water and then. It was us. I never had an us.
I want to say, I never meant to grow away from you. But I suppose the earth gravitates in directions we never expected it to. When the storm hits, we go running beneath the shelter. Forget about how much it hurts to be the one who holds everything down. As a kid, my house was made of ringworms and chipped mugs and flickering lights. There was no escaping a scar. When we graduated high school and friends became strangers, I thought I should find a place in the room where the empty didn’t look too obvious. Where I could blend into the background instead of being the broken piece that stood out. I spent all my time trying to not love or love again. Found this place where nothing could reach me. Yet, no matter what, I would always wonder where you had gone.
The thing is, I am on the other side of the world now but sometimes, I think: what could have been if I had just told you I had loved you? If I had just stayed behind? None of my friends ever liked you. They always said your name with sour tongue. If the world was less cruel and we were made with even elements, maybe we could be dancing still. We would be spinning in your garden patio, telling the stories we always pretended did not exist. I don’t know. I suppose, when I first began to think of freedom, I would hear you saying “we’ll leave whenever you’re ready” and isn’t that so scary? How easy it could be to go back?
I feel the passage of time more acutely than most. I feel the seconds slipping like drops of water from my hands. I guess I was old before I was young, and maybe that gave me the wisdom to know that each moment is precious. We never know if we are going to get more so invest each second wisely. Today, as I start another turn around the sun, I feel so blessed to say that I have filled my life with friends and family, with love and laughter, with beautiful nows and amazing memories. I wish I never forget and I keep this in my heart always and I make it my birthday wish that you can have the same joy, the same beauty that each second of a well-lived life gifts you.
We come to worship at the temple of the divine with open hands and open hearts. I feel your trembling and devotion, the sweetness of your being as you come towards me, flowers bloom and perfume the air where the ground touches the soles of your feet. You reach me and my eyes unveil the delights that within you lie as they are reflected in my eyes. A reaching out another simultaneously responds.
At the first touch, a mystery, the awe of a divine connection that words can't describe. It is beyond flesh, a mingling of energies and souls as they seek to become one, for the feminine is a temple for masculine devotion and together we become sacred. It is a worshiping, a giving, an outpouring of everything. It is the mindfulness of oneself and another together, immersed in endless bliss as the light fractures any boundaries. It is flying without wings and seeing the Universe in a giving and receiving of pure joy for divine is you and I together when we love as one.
I heal every day, albeit slowly. Be patient with me, for there is nothing I want more than to open my heart, and give myself fully like I did once, though before I chose foolishly. I want to trust once again with all my heart and hold nothing back. I want you to feel me totally surrender on the altar of the love you offer me. I want you to know me, inside and out. I don't want to be afraid of showing you my dreams and my fears, my hopes and my failures, my virtues and my shortcomings, but I hold in my chest a very broken heart, shattered in pieces that do not know exactly how to fit together again. I am afraid of hurt, of pain, of rejection, of being broken once again and yet I cannot deny the need in me to love entirely.
Be gentle with me, for my heart is very tender and still bleeds quite easily. I know it is not your fault all that has gone before, and that you are different from all I have ever known but that doesn't change the fact that I need very gentle, very loving hands because trust is hard to give. But if I have to ask for one thing, I ask that you have faith in me, that you trust that I love you immensely, that I want to give you all of me, that I am sincere in my feelings and that you trust my words when I say that I am learning how to love you with all of me every day.
