Dating : To my guts I pray

When life takes me by the gut and tears break my spine in half.

And arms come around me like butterfly wings, suddenly I feel alright.

There’s peace to be found in listening to another heartbeat. To feel someone holding you together as if by yourself you’d break apart. As if your bones and veins were loosely sewn together by timid self-love. As if their shouting was a pair of cisors, ready to cut through the weak muscles of autonomy.

In that embrace I suddenly feel real. And fingers strike my skull, place my hair behind my ears. A hand holds my back, right here right there, in the center of my spine. Fingers open and assured. And I feel the breath at the top of my head making flimsy pieces of hair dance to a silent tune.

This feels safe.

So please don’t let go, at least for now, even if everything disappears in the beat of a heart. I want to feel the warmth that I can’t give myself. I want to stop feeling like my skin is made of ice. I want to fall asleep and wake up alright.

Let us have those moments. Sitting up on the kitchen counter with music in the air and summer’s warmth stepping in from the open windows. Laughter of a child, screams of youth and promise. The soft bubbling of warming water. You singing to yourself, hiding the words behind your lips. A glimpse of eyelashes striking down my face.

Mildly awake on a grey old couch with the moonlight tenderly hidden behind the shut down blinds. A hand forgotten on the side of a knee. A quiet kiss in the corner of the neck.

Blinding orange sunlight burning up the ice. My eyes are not shut, they are not lost to the ocean sight.

When life takes me by the gut and tears break my spine in half.

Please don’t let me fall to the bathroom floor. Don’t let my hands shake as they punch the walls. Don’t let the tears of past deceptions ring chaos in my lungs, draw sorrow from my throat like a wounded animal struck by a bullet lets out a melody cold enough to make your soul tremble.

Butterflies belong in the summer and I am past tired of winter winds.

I am tired of writing hollow melodies that wrinkle like leaves in autumn.

So I don’t care if this is a dream, your hands on my skin are as real as I need them to be.

I spilled my guts on the kitchen floor of every poem, mixing together spices of old heartaches, holding on tight to the blinking lights through the drowning sight in salted water tears. I made echoing beauty out of battle scars. I drew blood to paint a podium to the past.

Let me fill my guts with butterflies. Hold my spine with the smell of fresh summer.

Let me walk through tall grass holding a hand. Eyes closed by the overwhelming sunlight but guided through the dark by the warmth of those fingers tracing circles on my palm.

When life takes me somewhere, let it take me home.