Delicate

It's a Sunday morning

and I'm falling through the cracks in the sidewalk.

Thinking about all that we've been through.

Wondering if we'll ever get it right.

The whole time we were together,

I couldn't write about us.

There was something about us that always felt

too fragile—too ethereal—too delicate

to put into words.

But I left and you let me,

and now the words won't stop pouring out

of my fingertips.

I loved you.

And sometimes you loved me too.

For months I survived on your scraps,

but one morning I woke up

and just didn't want to do it anymore.

Last night we were both on I-65,

except you were driving south and I was headed north

and that's a lot like how our relationship felt.

On the same open road, parallel,

close enough to touch,

real enough to feel.....

moving in two different directions.

Hoping and praying that we'd end up at the same destination.

——

Maybe there's a universe or an alternate timeline

where we end up together,

but it's not this one.

Here there is only aching and

and trying to untangle our emotions from each other.

Some days the way it hurts,

I wish I wouldn't have even started this.

But I don't really mean it.

I wouldn't trade how we felt

laying there on the couch

for anything.

——

I could listen to you talk about things I don't

understand for the rest of my life

just to hear you giddy about something that you love.

Every sunset makes me wonder about where you are

and if you're seeing it too.

Everything is just a metaphor for the way I love you.

I feel so achingly tender toward you.

And now I know you feel it too.

You pause when you look at me.

You don't linger like that for anybody else.

I unearth this softness and warmth in you,

something that you've never really been before.

How you're drawn to me in a crowded room.

How you just can't stay away.

We're so deeply connected that if we never speak again,

it would take years to become untangled from each other.

So yes I am afraid,

but aren't beginnings supposed to be terrifying, anyway?

—