Imperfectly Blooming

Words come sparse and far between these days. Valleys and mountains of highs and lows freckle the nights and mornings as I slowly ease into a routine without…without the thirst or the hunger of meat that I feel unworthy of. Meat that is forbidden and is in the shape of you; flies collect on the memories of you as I am no longer on the hunt for something that does not want to come on its own.

The mirror that I do not wish to look into is being forced to rear its ugly head, and it’s full of holes in the unfinished plans I made, cracks in the roads I abandoned and land mines in the gardens I stopped tending. I’m not an innocent pawn in the game I have now finished playing, I’ve been both the abused and the abuser, a double-edged sword, killing me to see the light and dark, the hero and the villain that resides in me at 3AM and at noon.

I thought when you left, you would take my words; silenced for weeks, months, trying to destroy the paper I once was, not even caring about the ghost I became. I destroy as quick as I build; that’s what draws people into me, it’s what made you think I could burn hotter than the fires you set. Trying to create a life that’s behind the curtain of things forever unattainable, I happily set ablaze a trail from which there was no coming back. The blood rushes to my hands, I can’t stay still now, words swinging and rocking in my mind, answers to the questions I haven’t asked yet, so I pick up a pen. You are the first thoughts, a burnt-down statue, you are the soot underneath my fingernails, the elbow grease turning the cranks to a love full of smoke and mirrors. You are the cursive in my newsprint, a gift of restoration, the pain and the recovery.

My forgiveness lies within the apologies you do not say, my peace floats in a heaven I must create without you. Your hands ripped my heart out as sweetly as you pulled my hair and made me sing for you; when did this song become about you? The man behind the curtain, the make-believe in a story with no ending, never to be remembered, it’s how I remember you.

I think about love, imperfectly blooming, shedding its skin and playing no games. I bowed down to the ego so many nights, confusing its voice for my own, a processed, super-sized me version of a food I cannot digest, I just simply don’t have the stomach for it. I look at love now, and I go from a flame brazen and destructive to water, a life source, perpetually falling and breaking and regaining and strengthening and giving and taking. The fire that was once for you has turned into a river, an ocean, deeper than you, than her; oh, her. A knockoff that you conveniently placed in your lap so full of loneliness and too eager for something to fill it. She might speak but she will never devour, she might kiss you, but she’ll never swallow you whole and release you until you beg for more. I am the ocean, crashing in between rocks and hard places, surviving every day, waiting for the moon, a light, to sew me up again, to gather me up and point me to a higher place, a place I thought I was never worth going to.

You left, my muse. But you left me imperfectly blooming. Forever rising and crashing, destroying and rebuilding…