From Where We Stand

“Where do we go from here?” That always seems to be the question lodged in the back of our throats, trying to scrape its way through to be freed from its obvious wrapping of insecurities. Why is it so hard to admit we are with no solid sense of which direction or from what angle we plan to approach this matrix of emotions we have bestowed upon each other. Unknowingly, we apply pressure to our weak points and analyze how the other bends just to validate our own moments in which we break ourselves. Why can’t apologizing for all the pain caused, just create a domino effect in which the road of forgiveness becomes a path marked by each falling wall built inside of us, and is lit up by the glow of our vulnerability. Because the spotlight we fear to have aimed directly on our fragility, is not one that shines brightly in our eyes blinding us, but shines from inside and glows brightly to illuminate all our darkest corners. But after spending so much time keeping the lights off, it’s only a natural reaction to shy away from the light and fear the clarity of our conscious to allow ourselves to be understood the way in which we feel.
“I have an endless fountain of emotions that I’m working through and it stole the air right out of my lungs but even in this breathlessness I know I love you.” This pain feels like I can’t breathe but I know I will still call out your name. I know I hurt you, in a way that will always burn at the thought, and taste bitter with every apology. I can never make better the moments in which I twisted the softest parts of you, molded them until the clay dried, and let another piece of you harden. I cannot seem to accept that those soft spots reserved for me, are just hardened callouses on the outer edges of your insides.

“All I have ever wanted from you was the sweetest, terrifyingly soft and tender fragments of your most genuine sense of self. I just want to hold you and have no doubt that I can love and cherish the softest parts of you without bruising and battering my most favorite secret hiding spots inside of you.” I cannot tell you, there are not enough words in the English language, that encompasses how much remorse I have for every single second in which I was wrong. I was more than wrong. Baby I broke you in a way that breaks me right back.I just want to fix this mess and let you relax in my promise to love you better. Because that is a promise. I am driven by the idea that you’ll trust me with every color of your insides that you don’t think you’d share with anyone else. The more you open up, the more the art gallery you are made up of becomes my new favorite room to feel any ounce of happiness I have in just existing. We may not always feel the happiness so distinctly, and on those days I bask in the mere blessing of existing in the same existence as you.
“Even when we make times the hardest for the other, I have yet to not feel this sense of absolution from your eyes when they hold no barricade and just display this endless sense of warmth and emotion from every boxed away memory you continue to stack up.”
You look at me and I’m searching for every “I love you”, “I need you”, “I’m terrified to lose you and I have no idea how to admit to you that I just can’t figure out how to be better when this is the best of me I have to give”, that’s trapped inside your stare begging me to listen because the words are echoing endlessly inside of you.
“Do you not see just how terrified of how in love with you I am as well?” I am not walking on eggshells. I am skating on the thinnest ice of my own idea of a winter wonderland. Your doubts drip out of your fingertips like icicles and freeze me in place. Leave me debating whether I enjoy the burn or the frost. Sometimes I feel like we may never feel the season of spring in our love if you refuse to move from the coldest parts of your pain. All I know to do is to keep trying to keep you warm inside and hope it helps you warm to me. I love you. Aren’t you tired of the cold?
“Where do we go from here?” Point me in a direction and I’ll use every line on your skin as a map to lead me to the holy land. You are my best friend. If I died in this moment, you would be the person who held the biggest, most important pieces of me. You knew me in my most unkept form, and kept my existence in this life from fading into its vastlessness. You keep me grounded to this earth and hold me in a place that makes me more than just another somebody. Being loved by you makes my existence feel as though it has a true witness. You make me feel like I won’t be forgotten. I am here and I am the most of me when I’m with you. It is more than love. But still, I love you. I am in love with you. I am becoming a better me every second and I hope it’s better than the cracks in the concrete we are trying to continue walking over.