The Night Is Always Young Somewhere

The night is always young somewhere

The darkness

Still a child

That may yet be taught

How to hold love

In the spaces between its teeth

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gave me the ability to speak, only to render me speechless so often.

In the way she gave me a voice, and a dread of using it.

The way she gave me all the words in the world, and feelings none of them could describe.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she sends me desire for those who will never desire me.

In the way she gives me a heart made of grasping palms and nothing to hold.

The way she shows me religion then baptizes me in doubt when I most need to trust in something other than myself. And in this way she keeps me close. For what do I have if I do not have her?

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the world to write about and yet sends me poems about you over and over and over.

In the way she compels me to write about forever and eternity and the vastness of space, while hypnotizing me with my mortality on a heart string swaying in front of me always.

The way she asks me to write about love and gives me only tastes of it. Watches amused as I pen page after page trying to recreate a feast on paper. Trying to quench the ravenous appetite she left me with, only to witness me fail time and time again. Smiling as I go to bed starving.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the will and yet no way.

The way she teaches me how to want, but not how to have, not how to keep.

The way she makes it my deepest desire to be known completely and yet my greatest fear.

The way she gifts me already broken promises.

And life is funny that way

By which I mean

Life is a cruel mistress

And every piece of my shattered heart

Is hers

The silence in the aftermath of an apology is a conniving thing

Greedy for forgiveness

Pulling assurances from you before you are ready to give them

They say forgiveness is a small price to pay for peace

But the question is who's?

Is my clemency enough to buy redemption for 2?

Are your sorries enough to purchase you freedom from guilt?

And if I cannot find my peace without granting you yours too

Then so be it

A lie is a small price to pay for justice

I promise myself I will unforgive you

That I will unaccept the apology somehow

That the sorries you mail in cheap white envoples will be returned to sender

That the meager words you offered me that I swallowed for the sake of hospitality will not be digested

I tell myself your suffering is worth the cost of mine

That if enough of your guilt devours you from the inside out, you may soon become emptier than I am

But we are both being eaten alive

For some things in this life are insatiable

Are merciless

For this we both know

So let it be be a waiting game

To see who holds out longest

Before mercy takes us

For herself

~ i do not care if you are sorry anymore (02.21.21)

You have softened all my edges.

And I am afraid

That when you leave,

(As they all

Inevitably do)

I will be left

Defenseless

Against

The world.

~

I run my fingers over all the places my skin is pulled taunt.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"I know."

But I want to want to.

For you.

There is not enough space

Between the lines

To hold

Everything

I failed to say.

~

I wonder often

If they will remember me

As anything other

Than what I helped them forget.

So I make promises

Knowing they will be broken,

In an attempt

To collect sins.

Hoping

In the end,

I might

Cash them in

To see you again.

~

I say

I forgive you

But you tell me

It means nothing

Because you do not

Forgive yourself.

Then what am I worth to you?

What am I worth to you?

For are you so staunch in your belief,

That you do not deserve

To be loved,

That you would shatter my heart

To prove yourself right?

~

I tell myself,

If I could not make you love me,

I will at least

Make you

Miss me.

But I do not hold it against you.

For if I left me

I would not

Long for my return

Either.

~

I title this chapter

Lessons on forgiving

Myself

When I deserve it

Least.

In it,

Sorry

Is not used

Once.

~another compilation of thoughts only beautiful out of context

“What do you want?”

“Whatever you are willing to give. I will take. And I will make do.”

~ Even if it just with the scraps of you

You taught me a softer way to love. Which is to say I have always loved like wildfire. Always loved vicious. All or nothing. Overwhelming and unbearable and so hard it hurts. Always loved a war of desire leaving my heart a ravaged battlefield with thick scar tissue in the shape of words they never said. But we burnt out. Which is to say I fell out of love with you in the summer sun in the middle of a movie theatre parking lot and it had nothing to do with you. And I did not realize this for years in the aftermath of this heartbreak. It had nothing to do with you. For you had always been you. It was me. For it is always me and the moment I am disillusioned regarding exactly what I am deserving of. Regarding exactly what you are offering and what I had misinterpreted your open palms and open smile for. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.

Which is to say when I did, touching you ached less. Your name in my mouth didn't sting so much. Every time you talked about someone else it never cut deep enough to leave a mark. And then it stopped cutting at all. And then I started being happy for you. And now, all this time later, I suppose when I call you my friend I mean it. Which is to say I never text you first anymore and it isn't even on purpose. Which is to say we talk when we have time, usually when you are home from school for the break, and I laugh like renewal, but never with enough joy that it threatens to rip my seams. Which is to say I have not fallen in love with anyone since you but I'm okay with that. I know I could. Which is to say I do not rearrange plans when you call and I do not particularly care about seeming intelligent to you anymore. Or beautiful. Or talented. Or worthy. I don't worry about keeping you coming back. Because I know you'll return for us eventually. And we'll pick up where we left off. Like we cannot help but meet again where you last left the person I used to be.

But every time we are together for more than a handful of moments I am in love with you again. And my heartbeat syncs with yours. And when you look at me I want you to keep looking. And when you touch me I want you to keep touching. But you never do. And I am practiced in this. So this time you walk me all the way home and it doesn't even get my hopes up. This time you sing to me at my doorstep and I do not flinch. Remind myself it is not your fault your kindness works like this. That this is just who you are. Because I will walk inside and peek out the glass for you to look back and you won't. And I will remember in the reflection that I am no one special to you. And I will fall out of love again, just like I have done a dozen times before with you. And I will go upstairs and take a shower humming the lyrics to the song you last played me and when I step out of the stream of water, my desire will be washed down the drain. And I will cease loving you until next time.

You taught me a softer way to love. Because I think you taught me there are some people we will never fall all the way out of love with. And that can be okay sometimes. As long as you are not destroying yourself with longing. Some things cannot be helped.

~ #3 : reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him