Natalia Vela

I know you always said “I love you” like a promise you couldn’t keep.

We don’t speak. Thumbs to jaws. Mouth to mouth. Heartbeat to heartbeat. In sync. There isn’t a sound in the room except the words to songs I don’t know reverberating through my core.

There’s something about you that is so intriguing. There’s something about you that makes me feel at ease.

Love isn’t a place that hurts. Love is supposed to be a home.

I’ve handed out pieces of myself like party favors to those who did not deserve a taste. I have loved before, and I have loved hard, and all I ever got were scars. So please be patient with me if I flinch when you touch me with more than hands, like ice coming into contact with them.

But you left me afraid, afraid of opening myself up to anyone else, afraid of letting anyone touch me with more than just hands.

I suppose my love for you started to seep out from my pores, slowly, each time you broke me a little more, each time you hurt me a little more, each time I got closer and closer to numbness, because our love always felt more like pain than love, more tragic than beautiful.

We fall back into old habits – bad habits – with way too much ease. We’re thirsty, high and drunk on the act, we’ve got chatty mouths, hungry hands, and a fake light in our eyes. We begin to tear ourselves apart, yet again, in different ways on our search for wholeness.