He holds me close, whilst I feel the current of my emotions crash against his chest. He cannot understand why something so simple must be made to be so complex. I no longer can either. He touches me without intention. Public. Pure. Sweet. I twist and turn, wondering why it’s not more difficult. Slowly I begin to see how much I’ve rushed in the past. Forced when I should have flowed. Clung when I should have let go.
He's new and yet familiar. As though his curves, his scent, his eyes are engrained in my memory. As though we’ve known each other all along. And then I realise - we have. He’s a carbon copy of all the hurt and pain, self-inflicted, wrapped up in a vessel I know too well. One that casts shadows on the walls that surround me. Offering a friendship I cannot keep. A fickle connection which requests certain conditions. Ones which do not suit, but I have come to accept all the same.
I see old wounds uncovered. Rusty and raw. Jagged edges slashing at my heart. Thought I’d buried them deep enough to stay long gone, yet here they are again; poking and prodding, bruising and cutting. Thought I was stronger than this. Strong enough to battle turbulent tides with the confidence of the fish which swim beside me. But I’m drowning. Tumbling in waves that spit me out onto the shoreline. Shattered and confused.
What it is to be here again, again.
I break a tooth. A symbolic display of splintered thoughts, which run chaotically around my mind. The pain is nothing by comparison to that which I feel within my heart and soul. The eternal ache of which cannot be as easily extracted as decaying enamel. Where is my love? Where is my comfort? Where is the one who seeks me, as I do them. Who wails into the moonlight and prostrates themselves on the cold hard ground, in loneliness and discontent. Where is he, whose fingerprints match mine?
I leave, walk old ground. Press my lips upon those who seek their attention. Share my flesh with the serenity and kindness I know it’s so very capable of bestowing. Yet, upon my return, I ponder, where is its solace. I was foolish to think it wouldn’t hurt with the weight that it does now. Naive to believe I wouldn’t long for the closeness to come again, quite as much as I have done since my return to the solitude I originated from.
Although, at least, it appears that the usual desire to create destructive heat has ceased. The rampant impatience subsided. The fierce clutching to lovers, as though they were rafts in a storm, all but dissipated. I feel a shift. A calm. As though I have surrendered to the suffering. It seems he has cured me of my sins, but not yet healed me of my wounds.
Now, I laze in the fields. Sun gazing. Clouds passing. My tears enrich the earth beneath me. In truth, I am sorrowful, but I know that soon love will come again. And when it does, I shall learn what it is to have patience. What it means to allow small seeds to grow in good time. Watch a thing unfurl and blossom, with good grace and not under my wilful command. I will try again, again.