Will You?

Will you still be here when I'm ready? Will you still be around when I'm ready to love again?

I've had my life shattered into pieces over something I never thought would break. I was a naive child. I was a young girl. I was so easily broken. I was so easily ruined. I crumbled. My heart gave way, it was the foundation and it crumbled, and everything inside me collapsed. I fell into a spiral. I buried myself under emotional blankets. I was someone else to everyone, but as I lay in bed during those nights, I felt as though I could sink into the springs of my mattress, into whatever lay beneath. I felt as though disappearing into the unreal would somehow leave the pain in the real world. I was wrong. I was stupid. I was irrational. So much more was broken than I ever imagined could be. There were fragments of friendships laying on on the ground, like pieces of a broken mirror. I could see myself in them, and I was ugly. My eyes had cried so many tears, my mouth had spoken so many ugly words. I would never be the same, and it hurt my soul to know so.

I will never be the same, that I know. Knowing it now and knowing it then are so different. Now I know I'll never be the same because that isn't who I was meant to be. I'm not meant to be easily broken. I'm not meant to shatter. I'm meant to stand tall. I'm meant to put the pieces back together to the best of my ability. I am meant for so much more than to be that girl. I am meant for you.

So will you be there when I'm ready? Will you be there to love me when I can say it back?

I look at your bright eyes and I smile inside, and I feel warm. I feel you when you aren't even touching me. I long to love you. I know that I can. Please don't think that I will never be able to. It's there. I'm meant to love you, we are meant to be amazing, I can feel it. I just need that patience. I need you to wait a little longer.

I'm here, can't you feel me? Don't you feel it when we touch?

When I kiss you, it brings that possibility closer to the surface, with every soft brush of lips and fingertips. And when you hold me in your arms I know that you're good for me. When I lay on your chest to hear your heart beat, I know that it's keeping time until I can give all of myself to you.

Stay with me, hold on longer, please?

I, I, I...

Undream

I think I loved you,
but I forget the place...

I've seen your face before. I know it wasn't in my dreams, because I could never dream you. I know it wasn't any old day, because you couldn't possibly belong anywhere else but this moment. I am seeing you for the first time, and the fifteenth time, and the last time. I feel a tear in my heart, as though something is trying to escape. I can hear myself breathing. I watch you move. I look at your lips as you say something to a friend. I am stuck. My feet are firmly planted. You see me looking. Normally I would break away. Normally I would move but instead you are moving towards me. I feel my face getting hotter. You greet me. I am replying in mechanized form, in movements I was born with. I was born for you, I feel. You take me away. You touch my skin with your lips. I am breathless for a night. I am breathless for what seems like an eternity. When I awaken you are gone. And I realize that in the moment I was seeing you, you were only looking at me.



And you were the queen
I was the king.

"Noli me tangere.
Noli me legere.
Noli me videre.
Noli me--"

Do not touch me.
Do not read me.
Do not see me.
Do not me--

Move away. Don't drift, run. I am so close to destruction. I am not who I was. I am not the one you love. But I love you so much. I love your skin and your eyes and your lips and your hair. And I hate myself for all the things you don't know I've done to you. I lie to you about how I feel. I want to die most days. I don't know why most of the time. I cower in my suicidal corner and hope that I'm making the better choice of staying here just to love you. It is the love you give me that keeps me from finishing something that was never really started; my life.
I fear the future if you aren't in it.
And I am telling you the truth about my desire for death so that you can do the thing that I don't believe anyone else can.

Save me.

I Am

I am beautiful and I am whole. I am all the pieces that make me, and then some. I am strength and joy and hope. I am the past, the present and the future. I am my past, present and future. I rely on me. I love others, but I love myself the most. I am open and I am closed. I am yours, but I am always my own. I belong to me. I rarely cry. I care too hard and too much. I get lonely easily. I want to help everyone. I doubt myself at least once a week. I am unsure and scared. But I am myself, and I love myself, and I will move and adapt. I will be better. I will continue loving myself unconditionally.

You're all over me. I want it. I feel your tongue. I'm there, you're there and I'm calling out to you, and I'm falling. Then I'm awake, chest heaving, eyes wider than my legs just were in that dream. I need a shower. I stand under the spray for what seems like hours. Then I throw on an old paint splattered sundress and some flip flops. I make myself a cup of tea and an english muffin. I eat, slowly, staring at the canvas that is whispering to me. I paint until it's dark and I don't realize. I look out the window at the cars going by to wherever happy people go on Friday nights. When you were here it didn't matter the day, the time, anything. All that mattered was that we had each other. You let me paint until you couldn't stand it anymore, and started to kiss my neck softly, pulling me away with no hands. You explored my body at night. Some days you worked for hours and left me to my pieces, the big pieces. That's when you left for lies and deception. That's when you were someone else I never knew existed. That's the point when the memories become distorted, and when the dream I keep having becomes a haunting reverie of beauty and pain and so many other things. Sometimes I miss you so badly it hurts my heart to the point of shortness of breath. I ache. I hate you now because even though you aren't here, you are everywhere.

He sees me in all my glory, sticky with saltwater and humiliation.
I don't speak. I shiver and back away.
"Lena, please wait. Please speak to me."
I am doing everything in my power to leave his eyes in the dark. Because if they stay in the dark like all of his secrets, then I'll be able to leave him once more. I'll be able to walk away again. I'm still shivering, still backing away into more and more darkness. It almost feels better than the water does on my skin. It envelops me, swallowing away the fear.
And I dive, swimming to shore with all my might. I grab my things and I get back to my place as quickly as I can. I lock the door and I leave all the lights off, keeping myself in the soft darkness, slipping around the slivers of moon on my floor and walls. I run a bath, peel all the wet, briny lace off of my skin, and sink into the warmth. I soak for an hour or so, dry myself and don't bother with clothes. I get in between the cotton sheets and fall asleep as the dark wraps honest arms around me, and allow myself the the most peaceful night of sleep I've had in weeks.

Blues and Greens

You are no longer a person.
To me anyway.
Fall away.
Break.
Shatter.
Disintegrate.
Disappear.
Your face is beautiful, but only in the memories I've chosen to keep, the photos I didn't shred.
Your voice is soothing, but only on the tapes I didn't throw out.
Your eyes are haunting, everywhere. All the blues and greens I see, they are your irises.
My mind races.
Then slows.
Races.
Then slows.
My eyes flutter open to the dark of night and I think for a minute that I can feel your body.
I'm wrong. Still dreaming, slightly.
My movements feel eerily basic, mechanical.
My limbs are disconnected from my mind, simply moving from memorized routine.
Wake-up.
Shower.
Dress.
Prepare.
Chew.
Swallow.
Chew.
Swallow.
I hate you, then I miss you. I stare at my phone. I work for a few hours, glad to have my mind busied by my pencils and paints. I avoid blues and greens. There's so much red, so much orange, so much yellow. Fiery like my thoughts. Flickering uncontrollably. And what puts out fire?
Ahh, yes, water.
Blue, vast oceans of water.
Blue, vast oceans of your eyes.
Fuck...
I stop painting. I wash my hands until they are bright red from me being unaware of the temperature. More mechanized movement ensue. I'd go outside, but I live near the beach. The sky is still blue, as is the ocean. The grass is still green. And the colors do nothing but haunt my heart.
I am lost in my pain, my choice, my monotony, all self-inflicted.
I wait until dark. I step outside, and take the five minute walk to the beach. I strip and wade into the dark water. This is dangerous, I know. I'm alone.
But I'm not alone. I see someone. More than someone. I see you.
And it's in this moment when I realize that coming to the beach was our thing. Late at night. And we are simultaneously reaching for the thing we've unequally lost. I'm reaching for my sanity. And you? You're reaching for me. I wish and hope that you don't see me. I sit low in the water, shivering, hoping that you'll go the opposite way. You wade closer. I hold my breath. My heart feels like it's beating loud enough for the world to hear.
"Is that you? Lena?"
Oh. No.