June 30, 2017 - 9:09 p.m.
poetic justice: on you - #1 I like to be right, because it means I still know you.
my heart liked the symmetry of it
there was a poetic justice
that appealed to the part of me
raised on 90s angst
that made suffering for reward, self-doubt and being misunderstood
- the template
for future relationships;
I believed that if it hadn't worked,
it was only so that
in some future, bent towards resolution,
where we would end up together
there would be a dramatic twist in our story
the hairpin turn
that pulled us back to that first moment.
A decade later
that turned up the volume on a connection,
not missed,
but severed.
By you. And intentionally.
I needed to feel
like it meant something that did
what you did
because even pain
could be meaningful
if painted
in the light of the love it must take
for me to forgive you.
We met. We fell. We transformed. We ricocheted away from each other. I wanted to stab your eyes out. And my own.
Probably because I loved you, and couldn't imagine a world without you in it. So I forgave you and loved you more, but differently.
I recast you. I became the first. You were mine. Pasts obliterated, except for the part where we discovered each other. Uncharted. Now expert sailors; me, master of my own craft, you storm-chaser and victim to siren song. I relished every failed relationship, not for the pain it caused you, but because it showed you,
piece by piece
how wrong you were to willingly let us go.
I had the power now, to witness you
make your mistakes,
to call them in advance
to be your Sybil
and your chorus
Then to pick you up, out of the dust and brush you off -
to be your mirror
because under every horror story, of girl after girl
ones who published your nude photos, cut off your dreads after taking mushrooms,
convinced you to invest jointly in property in Central America,
chased you down the street with scissors, calling you their love,
calling you a whore
I think what I like most,
was the slow realization
that I always got to be the first
the one you introduced to each new love
before you were broken
You see me now. I think you always did, but you needed to be sure. More of yourself than me.
We buoyed each other. And I loved to be reminded that we are each other's safety net. As much as we have done to each other and ourselves, we learned to float, to feel ourselves drowning and push up from the bottom. Your pale skin will always feel like drowning to me; looking at you could have killed me so many times.
I had a dream. When we were first in love and not afraid yet, that you were about to break my heart - But I was afraid. I just hadn't realized that the fear I clutched, down out of sight, inside my guts - was there. No one had been able to touch it before. I foretold my own end. You called me crazy. Then you ended me.
Cliff jumping was our thing. The rush in mid air. Clinging to the feeling of that first death walk over nothing, into the blue iris of your stare
daring me to cross the room
I did. I still do. I still want to be the one you call back to you.
I like being your choice. And I loved imagining that in that split instant, on the staircase, when I parted your lips with a question and pushed my fingers into the skin of your thighs, that all that separated us was certainty.
I thought I had found my way back to you. Purposefully. Like walking back to bed from the bathroom, in the middle of the night in darkness. There is a familiarity that seemed like it must have been on purpose. Otherwise, why should I remember your shape and all the steps it took to get here?
But I was too slow. And you, too fast, glancing at another.
Another time. We missed.
And I thought she might be the one, too.
When I knew she wasn't, you told me - and I pretended not to know the end to this story. It hurt to realize the circle broke, for no reason. Because I like reasons.
Almost as much as I like predicting the end of your bad choices. I always know before you do.
Even, or perhaps because, you were the one who broke me.
I liked knowing that the more pieces there were,
the clearer I became
I was the one before the chaos
Was I the start?
You were the one for me - who taught me to be afraid
of losing myself
but you were also what taught me to value this body, this heart
because you knew I was priceless,
even if it was only when I was already gone.
