Yes, and. I love you.

I get fixated and fascinated with the loving.
The love in life. Seeking it and feeding it and needing it.
When you sense deficiencies it drives you to seek all the more,
demand it, incensed at the loss of it.
But when it encloses you, surrounds you in droves,
other aims reveal themselves.
The sky opens up and you see the great beyond.
Beyond, beyond it.
It's odd and foreign that I don't feel nearly so grasping,
so desperate, so scared.
Even the scary parts feel freeing.
Beyond that great divide, between myself and me.
This heart and mine. This heart, mine.
Even in such a short time,
to sense growth and stretches of understanding.

Just today I was thinking of future aims,
debt repayments and timed arrivals and Mama.
I can't help but consider you and this.
But even so, I'd be remiss to not think of myself.
Where do I envision going?
With or without you.
Where to travel and venture and explore confusing matters.
Aye, so this is love. Cinderella told me long ago.
Maybe that was some floundering and ill advised manner,
but this version feels just right.
Warms up the coldest bits and softens the toughest truths
that once I thought I knew.
A foundation to build something strong and steady upon.
This world feels so fresh and now so new.
And it's no pressure, no pressure at all.
Because even though you're a bright guiding star,
I aim and speak that I shall not possess you, not neglect you.
But mostly, I'm learning to not neglect myself,
to hold love for you and for me all together.
Do you feel your footing, too?

The yes, and. The ultimate yes, and.
Yes and, would you have lunch with me tomorrow?
And maybe other days after that.
Yes and this is thrilling and make believing and
no, I'm not dreaming.
You're real, you're real. I'm really here.
Yes and until it's no longer what we feel
that there is so much love and longing
and endearment and rapture and grounding and realness
and my heart. My heart.
Yes and, this breathing, this life.
Yes and, a start.

Some Self-Inflicted [Feelings] Barbarian

It's true, I haven't exactly approached this lightly.
Not so long ago, I clenched tightly the remaining jagged pieces.
Tracks of searing tears and clenched fists.
In and out, most moments defined by labored and paced breathing.
Yes, I feel it still. The shards have rounded ever so slightly,
tumbling to and fro in these remaining veins.
My very blood and guts may yet come unfurled,
any moment, any time.

I do leave the door open, wide open.
Step in or out, come and go rightly as pleased.
No longer am I one to wedge it shut
or demand what color or adornments pertain.
Comfort and security is some kind of illusion, isn't it anyway?
Nothing one could say, nothing to demand or mean.
That's not the cynic in me, I'm just learning life, you know?
I'm sure of nothing because nothing is assured.
Saith likely death and taxes.

Still, I can't help but hope we float along the same way.
On the road, in this babbling and so often tumbling stream,
through barbed thickets and dense walls of ashy stone.
Of all the choices, all the glimmering pathways.
I see you on mine and hope the same from you,
but you see, nothing is promised or quite so sure.
As honest as honest can be,
rightly and wrongly claiming some need to be.
To be special or important or noteworthy,
some inextricably enhancing quotient.

So, you see, onward I seek and stumble,
ready to release it all, to let it be.
Even my nails, painted green, remind me of days I once was
fresh and new. Untainted and unmoved. Ready to fight,
to do and take whatever it takes.
But you learn sometimes what it takes is more than one should bear.
Tears you asunder, an unknowingly self-inflicted barbarian.
It is this, this knowledge, which left you for dead
that renders you stunned and stammering and gasping for air
when you find yourself yet again at this renewed precipice,
thinking it was the end.

I look my beloved deeply in her eyes
and wonder, my dearest, my love, how are we here still again?
I saw you die, witnessed you bleed out and fragment
into billions and dozens of awkwardly shaped bits.
Was it the music, the writing, the talking all-nightly?
The time or space or nights of showering,
sobbing freely and assuring myself 'it'll be alright'?
Was it the occasional drinks and dancing to soul?
Or the struggle of acknowledging hard-to-grasp addictions?
The words of wisdom from ones most dear?
The tight hugs and assurances a new beginning was getting near?
I don't understand you and your commitment to feeling,
to belonging and seeking and sensing meaning.
You delight and amaze me, truly. Teach me lessons I never knew
could be rendered from within. Grow out of pained and blacked places.
Sometimes I'm angry and bitter about you. We never agreed which way to go.
I died, didn't you read the DNR I left for you?
Then I crumble down again, soften and realize just how awestruck I feel, how unreal.
Made anew, ready to jump and nearly effortlessly proclaim I love you.