And Repeat

Look at me a little longer to make me feel beautiful. You’re so gentle with me that it hurts, you’re fingers grazing over my hipbones, like you’re loving me for the first time. We're back in the safety of your bedroom, and nothing will hurt us anymore. I've decided that questions for the future are pointless because all we have is now. I stare up at the ceiling as you kiss my stomach. I can’t fathom how you can nurse even the butterflies back to health. I like you, in all of this terrible beauty. Whatever is going to happen, I know I'll be strong enough.

“Tell me why you scream at night.” I say softly, my hands running through your wet hair – you just got out of the shower, and you’re wrapping me up in your pretty clean warmth. You look up at me, eyes bearing labyrinths of emotions and broken thoughts. I just want to know, I just want to absorb the pain that courses through your bloodstream. I've got so much baggage that I wouldn't mind taking on some more; I wouldn't mind releasing the pain from you just so you wouldn't have to feel it. You have been my keeper; you have been my joy. You can burden me and fix me at the same time. We’ll make each other whole again, one secret at a time. I think the world would hurt a little less with you by my side.

Your hands put pressure up and down my arms, a gentle rubbing. “You're not the only one who’s been sold short and been forced to sell themselves short.” You say quietly, but firm in your touch and gaze. You are unafraid. Your fingers wind around my own, and they're so much longer and slimmer than mine but I still feel enveloped. The way you say it, like it's such a far away time. I don't know what to say back, because everyone has their inner skeletons, the pieces of themselves that haunt their past and memories. Your crystal insides are not so clear now; they are opaque with a person I do not know, who used to control your body. But I don't press for more, because you’ve never pressed me. We're together, and it's quiet, and I still like you for all I'm worth.

“It's nice to feel alive again.”

You like that I can say that, because your lips hit mine and I'm smiling. I am real again; complete. This child of sarcasm and bitter words reincarnated into something bigger; something more beautiful. I am no longer alone. You kiss me and I am no longer afraid to live, and I'm not afraid to die because that's not even a thought in my mind. All of the dirty words have been stashed to the side, all of the cruel remarks and cutting phrases are now forgiven. And I know you don’t know what you have done, how you put this matchbox beaten princess back together simply by believing. All it took was that smile and trust you put in me to mend the cracks.

I know that it’s time to take back control. I don't want to cry as I feel the circles of ending and beginnings coming to a close; here is the ferris wheel, and we have gone from the top to the bottom and back again. The cycle is complete. Every ending marks a beginning; ever beginning means that something else has finished. And I want to take on that circle with resilience and you at my side. I don’t want you to be afraid, because you and me, that’s not our style. So stand tall with your head up and your shoulders straight. And I'll stand with you now. If you had met me only a year ago, you would have seen someone who was afraid to stand on her own two feet; to even stand up at all. I didn't want the cycle to end, I didn't want to wake up and see myself. My body chose to starve itself because of my inner thoughts and conflicts. I was a parasite to myself, mind feeding off of a host of bad demons.

We're careful with each other as we kiss; as if not to break the fragility that encases us. I feel your wonders at the end; I even taste the curiosity for the future. The idea of the future was never closer, and I have never been more free – although I didn't think life would play out this far, it hardly mattered. I am someone with a future once again; you stood by my side and I became unstoppable. And no matter what endings you have had, or beginnings that I have had, we will cycle and merge into each other like the waves. Beginning and ending, beginning and ending and if our ending comes sooner than later, I know I will be strong, you have showed me my strength. We have a choice to fight our fear, to let it consume us or to do what we know is right. So it is time to rise up from the graves we have dug ourselves; rise up from the ashes.

“Is this where we finish?”

“No. It's where we start.”

I don’t know who said what, in this bed I hardly know where you start and I begin; we're just a mass of limbs and connective tissues, strangling ourselves underneath the sheets. But only in the best way, only in the way to break my heart – tear it in half to give to you; it's the sweetest pain I've ever tasted.

You are solidified always in my own mix of ink and tears. You are the words, and you wrote the poems in my head. The aching glass phrases that stabbed my chest; you carry it all. I cannot take you out of my story in the same way I can't take anyone out of it; but it can be my choice who will play the lead roles. And we will be the main characters now; I have taken back control. This fragment is one in a million, and if you will be there until the epilogue, I still won’t know why. But I am not scared; I can only hope. It's time I found a reason why, and I've found it in the asylum of your lips. I thought I could be destroyed, that I was too weak to continue. But I lived on in your borrowed strength and courage, and I am no longer a dead girl. You gave me hope, and you gave me strength in the simplest way. I feel happy for once, and I hope I can make you happy. I can remember that the future doesn't matter, because I'm lying in your arms and you’re kissing me like we might just disappear into ourselves. And I am so alive.

Your fingers took the noose off of my neck and guided me off the rickety crate in the back alley way – but you still took my life. You took my life and gave me something new. It's always going to be a choice between love and fear, and if we stand on top of those rickety crates long enough, someone is going to throw the rope off our neck for us. I would throw the rope off for you; I will always fight by your side, as long as you’ll have me. So, take inspiration from these twisted words and crumpled notebook, love-stained and dipped in the will to survive. Because there is nothing left to do but conquer; no one but ourselves can destroy us. Take these words and write them across the sky; beauty can be found in alleyways and choking strings.

And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.