If you hadn’t
Broken my heart
I’d have never
Found my voice.
If you’d never have
Held my head
While dizzy-frenzied
Spinning,
You’d never have
Held my heart.
If you’d never
Brought me to
High-heady heights,
I’d never have
Returned so many
Beautiful times.
If you’d never
Pretended to care,
You’d never have
Meant enough to
See the job through.
If you’d never mattered
You’d have never battered
Down the iron bars
Which held me firm.
If you’d been just
Another faceless name,
I’d never have been freed
From the past’s
Icy grip.
If you had been here,
I’d never have healed;
You’d have held me
And I’d never have
Learned to hold
Myself.
If you had been
Here, I’dve continuously
Bled as the wound
Reopen; while distraction
And intoxicated confusion
Tear at my trauma
Masquerading as love.
You were a safe place
To hide, while the
World turned, funnel-cloud
And frenzied
And toppled us on our
Other side.
We walked outside
To survey the wreckage
Only to find
It would not have
Survived
Life’s storms.
What is the measure
Of a temporary
Retreat from the
Troubles we both
Carried?
It was sacred and
Full of holes
And incompleteness
Left us wanting
What is no longer
Wantable, no longer
Attainable, no longer
Holy.
Head and heart
In such disagreement
About what was never
Agreed to – it was
Only the temporary
Measure.
You’re unfeeling-free
And I await
Permanence while
These loosely knotted
Bindings flutter
Behind me like wings
And I feel transformed;
But really I am
My birthself, my
Trueself, my
Authenticself, my
Non-Temporary soulself.
Will I morph again
Before finding the
Measure of another
Like me?
