Tabitha Vohn's Blog - Posts Tagged "relationships"

What I loved about you
a second secret skin
how you knew
eventually
you’d lose him
but loved him anyway
He asked, “Are you still my girl?”
You said, “Always.”
Hearts held impossibility
like fingers tangled in each others
hair like palms anchored in
holy water his presence
a constant burning
you forgave the marks
his teeth left
his metallic knowledge
within your veins
forgetting the way
you glowed in him
forgetting
how many times you
saved him
grown insubstantial as
shadows in the black
trench coat that turned
towards the moon and
turned towards you
just before your light
became a casket door
to close
a home to walk out on
You tried warmer arms
like sample drugs
sharper teeth
made passionate
distractions of enemies
fooled yourself into
sympathy pains for
ones you convinced
yourself you craved
them
misshapen puzzle pieces
scraping against the tender
edges of his heart-space
The Truth
shape-shifted
into something you didn’t
want to recognize
That it was never the demons
or vampires
witches’ spells
wrathful goddesses
or harbingers of death
that had the power
to break you.

Only love
Could do that.

Sometimes
I pen these lines
to keep my fingers free
of Smartphone keys

I'm always the one
to reach for you first
it seems
I'm bad at taking hints

though your silence reads
like neon strobe light
signs in rain

this metamorphosis
I've made
tear-soiled
castaway
outgrown comfort object
cast into the back of the
closet
Maybe useless
Maybe an embarrassment
Maybe too sentimental to
throw away

Just
tell me
someone
is wiping your tears with
their tongue
someone is soothing
you with maternal hymns
trading nightmares for sage
is there for those 2am texts
I still check for

It's true
I remain your
guardian angel on
the back burner
hoping your back has bent
to fit the shape of feathers

Tell me
you've drifted into a
breeze true enough
to carry you
Tell me something real

Something you're Afraid to

Anything True

give me --Something-- to hold onto

Free me of this Addict's lie
that pain is the only sure thing
I have left of you

I'm bad at taking hints
and Time's
falling slack on this whole healing
all wounds instead she's compounding
how much I fucking miss you

at least
I'm running out of ways to say it
hoping that means I'm closer to
accepting it
though I don't feel like I am

How can I be?
How do you force your soul
to stop loving someone
or needing to be needed
once you've been on the
other side of that altar?

Do you know I still can't
listen to that Jaymes Young
song?
You're still the first person I
give to God in the morning
ask Him to watch over you
while you sleep

Tell me that
-- Once--
It was Real
For now
that's all I need.

"A 'thin place' is a term that...in Celtic spiritually...refer[s] to places where the distance between heaven and earth seem gossamer thin."

I have this text
from you
I kept
after things got bad
after I'd deleted the rest
too painful to remember
all I thought was lost

It was
the last time
you'd told me
you loved me
the last time
things were good

Since then
You've tied knots
in our elastic thread
more times than I
care to admit

I'm coming to the understanding
that I may never understand you

Loving you
has never been a choice

The only conditions
I've placed on it
have been unconditions
only that's not entirely true
Because if it were it wouldn't hurt
So fucking much to love you

My breath humming over
those knots in
rosary contrition
in prayers & poems & psalms
I hope will unravel them

If I've expected
too much from you
it's because you gave me
what I wished for
a dangerous thing
for the inner girl

so used to conditions
so used to losing

You
are a faultline
all too capable of
breaking me
Either present-full overflowing
or empty
Either a tidal flood of your voice
cracked open
welcome at your door
Northern light calling me in

Or I have no clue
what you're thinking

Now
The only person
standing between
Me & You

Is You

Which scares me
It means that
from now on
the silence will
only have to do
with me

I'm working on the breaking
on Balance
With you
I've always been lacking
You're the only one
I've ever loved this much
with restrictions

I won't make excuses for
Projections
all I wished could be
It's been unfair of me
Maybe
to want or expect
adopting you into daily breaths
hurt when being your home
was borderline reality
a ringing in my lungs louder
when I'm empty

Emptier with every whisper
telling me I've over-stayed
my welcome
said you've grown sick of me
said you didn't really want me
that my affectionate ways
Overbear
Suffocate

I'm piecing together shards
prying lose fingers clinging to
conditions

I stopped reading that text
these past few weeks
instead I content myself
to pray for you before I sleep

I'd rather wait now
For the "I love you, too"
I may or may not get

I'll love you
better for that

For not reaching in vain
towards all I can't have back

I can love you
just the same
from any distance
whether or not you
need me to

Whether or not you
Unravel our elastic thread
I still feel you
In thin places
Less like barbed wire
More like remembering
Home.