When you comfort me with your words

Is it your soul I reject?

If I show you the imperfect unpolished core of me in my tears

And you answer with your hurried honest being

Is it yourself I reject?

There isn't time for thinking in front of calamity.

No time to pick and discard

Beautify and paint

So the words I turned my head away from

Are they your soul?

And if so

If so is true

Are we, my loved one

Two beings that souls can't touch?

Are we, my loved one

Able to love in such a way?

Is it a tragedy? Is it a life?

When I cry

When you cry

If our ragged edges can't complete

If they hurt and bleed

My dear,

Are we supposed to love?

You look away with a frown

Trembling hands that ask me to not repeat

Any word of that question that will break

Most of what we ever tried to build.

But dear one, I need to know

You told me once, fondly and with laughter in your voice

That I am the type that can never stop

Searching for answers once the questions touch my mind.

You laughed once

But now your closed-off body is telling me

That you wish I was anything other but.

And that

That, dear one

Is it not something we should face?

The nights after my tears were always the coldest.

You held me so tight in our bed, in our hard-earned home

And yet your fear-filled eyes turned my body into ice.

The sobs you hide with rushing water

And the redness we both face the new days with

I, of my own tragedy and despair

And you, of your helplessness and fear

Of not being enough to the only one you chose

And hoped with clenched fingers

To be enough for.

Your smile painted over breakfast we can't swallow

My apologies that are repeated over our days

And your strained features that don't know where to take any of them.

You are enough, I swear with all my tired broken heart

And yet in the moment, you can never reach beyond the utter despair that holds me

And yet in the moment, every part of my being tells you that you aren't quite.

Even though I long for you in every other way

Even though I need you in every other way

It is this particular and only way

That might be the end of us.

I wished for change in the worst of those days.

Wished for a whole other soul

That might be pretty enough to connect edges with anyone on earth

But with you most of all

With you most of all.

I wished for another being and another name

Something you can call without it breaking your heart apart.

And yet on those nights, you screamed at me with fury in your eyes

That my name is the only one you fell for and it will stay

And for that, my heart, I cried

For that, I sobbed.

For we are so in love in my eyes and in my pain

For we are so intertwined that love without the heartache is nothing we seek.

For that we can't, no matter how much we try

Find a way out of this misery we breathe.

You wouldn't love anybody else. I can see it in your eyes.

That in even the darkest moments

Where anger is higher than any promise

You still

Above all

Look into my eyes like you can't bear all else.

You wouldn't, and my soul knows the same

That my love was grown for you and perhaps

Perhaps

Finished on you too.

But is it worth it dear heart?

Is our love worth all this heartache

All these tears?

If you have to hold onto me so tight

With terror in your veins

And a feathery smile on your face

If I have to rest my whole being on your hands just to assure

That this is where I chose to belong.

If you need the whole weight of my burdensome existence just to believe in our love

Are we meant to love

Should we love?

I, beyond anything else

And more than any other wish

Wished that your arms were enough to hold my battered and utterly incapable of being held self.

Beyond anything else

I wished that somehow and without reason or logic

Your arms will be able to hold my watery and fleeting existence.

To keep it tethered and centred

To make it believe in anything other than its own tragedies.

Even though I tried all my life

Even though I broke in search of it

Even though I told myself that some people just

Don't rest.

But it is my greed that brought us here

It is my foolish and utterly hopeful heart

That ignored all the scars it wears

And threw both of us in this story I wish with all my heart

That you never entered.

Your love was new to my soul

And in its uniqueness was my fall.

I couldn't use any walls I built

For that you could jump over them

With ease I never felt.

For that you, most of the time

Destroyed my walls without knowing they even exist

Gently and methodically

One bright laugh at a time.

I couldn't shut you out with any cruelty I learned

For that your kindness was one I never saw.

You were lovely, in every way

And I didn't stand a chance

And mostly and honestly

Didn't want to have one.

I fell

Completely and erratically

Nothing like the elegant picture my heart has of you.

And yet you caught me somehow

You said I fell too

And I couldn't believe it back then

Looking at your soft unscathed skin

And your bright sated eyes and soft calm breaths

Couldn't believe that someone like you fell for someone like me

When I was lying on the ground trying to catch my breath.

I never told you those thoughts.

It was fear perhaps

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Of confirming that your fall wasn't quite the all-encompassing feeling I struggle to keep inside most times.

It was fear perhaps

To know I fell into another hope

With someone who survives falls like they never happened

To the extent it almost seems like

They didn't happen.

My heart whispered your name in awe

And I hit my chest with tears running down my face

It is a tragedy waiting to happen, I repeated in hysterics

Happened, waiting to happen

Will happen.

Yet my heart didn't care.

Defiantly and Stubbornly replied

That life without love isn't easier than this

And what of tomorrow I asked

What of the pain that is coming I pleaded

Quietly and in aching beats it said

What of the pain that is now?

I didn't tell you any of this.

A coward I was or a greedy man who couldn't think of losing his treasure

I alluded in peaceful silences

With a joking tone and light words

That don't come near to the reality of how much I hurt those who try to love anything I am.

And you would hum and listen

Laughing at all the right moments

Then you would look at me and stay silent for a few moments

Just looking with a faint smile

And the replies varied

And sometimes didn't happen.

As I was a child begging you to understand

But never strong enough to tell you in a way that might make you do.

But once

And only once, since I'm beginning to understand (and how late it is.) That you were also not strong enough to face someone believing they are undeserving of love

When your love and heart and being

All belonged to them.

You said

That the people who love me know

And I was stunned by the utter grief in your eyes

That I couldn't ask any of the questions that might have saved us from more despair.

What part did they know?

That I can't be loved? That I'm hard to love?

That I'm watery and impossible to hold

Complicated, tired, unable to give much

Not having much

Or, looking at your sorrowful eyes

That I can't accept love?

I didn't ask.

And the moment passed as it is

But returned in every moment after

In different words and looks and pain

It returned.

And neither of us were brave enough to sit down

And fix it from the moment it had begun.

It's something like that I think.

I never told you any of those things, and I lived on the foolishly confident assumption

That you needed my words to know them.

When the truth turned out to be

And like you said

The ones who loved me always knew.

(If I told you this discovery you would laugh

A tearful fond sound

And I would apologise to your returning ire

If I told you this you would say

"You were always the type to never let go of the answers you found, no matter who says and who does.

You hold onto them dearly and desperately.

Sometimes, and you would cry on this, more than you hold onto your loved ones.")

It is like that I'm starting to realise.

However late it is, however cruel I was in my lateness.

I wished forever for arms to be able to hold my being

And later on, I wished for your arms only to do such a thing.

But from the moment you asked my name with a curious look

And from the moment I answered your question and every other one that followed

You had held onto me

You had held me in your heart

And in your care and words.

You opened more than your arms to me

You bared yourself to me and only ever asked in return

That I do the same.

Yet I couldn't believe that I can ever fit into any space you make for me

Even when you kept your aching arms raised

And tearful eyes accepting

And struggling heart loving

I couldn't believe

That it is anything that can accept me.

And in the long years ahead where you dropped your arms and held onto me instead

Ruthlessly and viciously and so so defeated

I wondered

In so many tears and so many moments of utter self-hate

If I can ever deserve your neverending tries.

You would shake your head and beg with exhausted everything

Hiding your face in your hands and trembling violently.

I'm here right now

You would say

I'm here and I will be here

It isn't going to change

Will you ever

Let me hold you?

But what if we fail? I would counter

What if I let you and we fall

What if we fail and everything dies?

And your red eyes and bleeding heart would answer instead of your silence

What is this we are doing if not failure?

I whisper one night with my ears close to your erratic heart

How could I ever repent for how I hurt you?

And your hands would tighten on my body with a breathless laugh

Love is blind, you would whisper back, and I have been utterly blind for you.

I close my eyes painfully and wonder if this could ever be the love you deserve.

And you would answer my unspoken doubts

With a voice that knows it deserves more

Yet wants it from just the person its heart chose.

I'm drowning in you, you have made me drown

And yet

I see no light of salvation in front of me

Either save me and come with me to land

Or we drown together.

You would laugh, a broken choked off sound

You say your existence can't be held

Yet it has buried itself in me to the deepest part of my soul

And it won't let go.

Would you ever

Just accept us?

It is the utter defeat in your voice, I think.

It is the utter defeat that makes this love so hard to bear

Because even then your hands

Never let go of my weight.

I'm okay.

You would repeat with wild and bloodshot eyes

And I would rest my head on your back

Not stopping you from hiding the tears you think will make me let go.

I would rest my head and whisper tiredly

After another cold night of love not being enough.

You are not okay.

And your whole body would tremble and shrink

Screaming at me

What do you want me to do?

Just tell me what I can do

I will do it but just

Your voice cracks on the words and you fall, and I follow.

Hiding you from the world but most importantly from me.

But just tell me something. Anything.

I don't know how to love you anymore

Then shouldn't you stop?

I ask blankly and your nails imprint on my arms that are caging you

Do you think it's that easy? You would question with barely repressed rage.

Should it be that hard?

Should love be that hard?

Your body would shake violently with your sobs

And I would nod to your repeated whispers with closed eyes.

Selfish, selfish, selfish

I tighten my arms around your body and I nod

My foolish greedy selfish heart.

We should end this.

My words hang in the air

Bring a stillness that makes it hard to breathe.

Your fingers twitch in a memory of your stubborn heart

Your brave stubborn beautiful heart.

But they still.

They still and I exhale all my hesitant thoughts

We should end this

I repeat and your breaths are shaky.

Staring at the table not looking at me

Vacant eyes telling me you're thinking of our story

From start and

To end.

Your face is pale

And your body is frail

We both know

I took from you much more than you should give.

Your fingers twitch again

And mine do the same

I raise my eyes to the ceiling and blink away the tears

Holding on isn't the answer anymore

Perhaps it never was.

I tried

You whisper in a tired voice

I tried to love you but you

Looking me in the eyes with a hollow laugh

You make it impossible to be loved.

My heart shrinks and I silence it with trembling breaths.

I'm sorry

Your eyes sharpen with the usual ferocity you used against my self-doubt

Only this time it is only against me and I

Welcome it with accepting everything.

I deserve your guilt until the day I die and perhaps beyond

But that is not the point of this.

You lean on the table and push my chest with your finger

(How my heartbeats still quicken, how they still call.)

The point of this

Is that your heart deserves more than you give it.

Your cold hands hold my face gently and with a familiar sadness.

I loved you

In all our moments I have loved you

But I can't love you for both of us

I can't love someone who thinks they can't be loved.

Your fingers map my face with slow longing movements.

I loved your heart and soul and brain and being

And I would have drowned if it meant holding the existence you liken to water.

Your fingers stop at my eyelids and gently close them

I inhale sharply when your lips meet my closed eyelids

One after another.

Your whisper warms my face and makes the tears fall

But it isn't about me

It's about you.

And until you brave the waters alone

It's time for me to leave.

I sob desperately trying to breathe with my eyes clenched shut

And I feel your tears joining the warmth on my face.

You breathe your final words into my lips, where our salty tears join

Trying to give me the bravery you always seemed to have in front of my wavering fears.

You will always be loved.

You say, surely and slowly

Like it is a mere fact of life.

You just need to accept

Not deserve, or win or be worthy of.

Accept your heart

Accept that it can be loved

And when you do

A sobbing sound cuts your words and I hold onto your hands that still, at our last moments, hold me so gently

When you do,

I will be there to show you my love.

I rest my face and once again my weight on you

With horrifying sounds that I can't stop

Speaking of my misery and pain and utter fear of a forever inability to be loved.

Yet you only hush me with gentle sounds

And let your fingers wipe my tears for the last time

Hoping that I can come back to you

Hoping that the pain in our story has a happier end.

You take a breath and slowly let go of my desperate hold on you

Being kind even in our end.

Your forehead touches mine and I can't open my eyes

Can't see you leave or cry once again because of me

And maybe for the last time

Yet you whisper and I can't ignore

Look at me.

I can't ignore

My eyes open slowly and my vision is blurry

Yet I can see the soft and sad devotion in your eyes

So so honest in a way we couldn't be before

So so brave in a way only you could be.

We don't need any more words

Not when even in your eyes

My existence is so carefully and lovingly cherished.

I'll learn

Your eyes soften and you nod

You will.

And I love you

You nod again with a small smile

You do.

Thank you

I sob again

Your body deflates with a relief so strong it makes you close your eyes.

No, thank you.

And when the door closes and the silence returns,

I lie on the ground listening to my own heartbeat

That I silenced in my fragile wish to not be hurt.

Listening to it talk in soothing tones

We will try.

It promises

And I softly rest my hand on its sounds

We will

I assure

For both of us.