I don't really write poems anymore. Because the only thing I know how to write about are grief and love- these days I wake up and don't think about killing myself, so grief's out of the question.
I can't write about love, because everyone I write about leaves me. Before anyone says anything, this is not an irrational fear, not really. I'm not talking about a mysterious curse that I made up on spot where my terrible poetry drives people away. I know all about the difference between causation and correlation, and no, this isn't a product of my anxiety, or one of the million coping mechanisms my therapist says I use to avoid confronting the reality. It's the objective truth: people leave. They die or rip themselves away from your side or simply cease to exist in your life. We are mortal; our time in this plane comes with a limit, and that extends to the people we spend it with. People leave. Sometimes, it kills you. Often, something worse happens: you live.
The problem is that people leave, but words don't. Your love, written down plainly by your own hand, stares back at you balefully. They ask, what now? They ask, what are you going to do with all this love? And hell, I can only say I don't know so many times before it gets old. So really, it's better to stop writing altogether.
But god knows I can't stop writing about you.
The mere thought is ridiculous. How can I stop writing about you, when my whole definition of love is shaped around you? How could I even put a lid on my affections for you, when they are ever overflowing? It's only natural that some of it would escape and spill on the paper by my bedside.
When I think of you, this is what I see: dark hair, dark eyes. Kohl smudged under your eye, memory from a lifetime ago. My name in your voice, rough and low, always smiling. The way even the way you say it screams that you treasure it, that you treasure me. And you're still just as beautiful as the the day I first saw you.
You used to be something wild, back then. There was nothing pretty or playful about it. Rows of jagged teeth, feral eyes, shoulders hunched to your ears in distrust. Always ready to strike, knife on your tongue thrumming with anticipation of the kill to come. Spitting, snarling. Rings of bruises all over you, because all the love you've known came in the form of a backhand to the face or a touch that burned. You never knew what it meant to be gentle, because no one bothered to be so with you. Every word a growl, a warning. You were desperate and deadly because you were wounded, but that was not why you were wild. You were an animal, a thing of teeth even without the knife twisting, twisting into your back, your chest, and your side.
And somehow, you were still beautiful.
I've never had self preservation. Just a penchant for trouble, and an eye for beautiful things. Lesser men would've cowered under your gaze, would've run for the hills after seeing the venom you spit. But not me.
I still remember, you know. The flash of surprise in your eyes when I extended my hand, palm up, and waited. The way your lips parted when I simply smiled and bounded away when you didn't take it.
I've always been curious. Dog with a bone, I won't let it slip from my jaws till the ache in my teeth is satiated. I wanted to know if your canines will remain just as sharp when your wounds seal and scab. If you are a beast by nature, or by circumstance. I wanted to know if you've always been beautiful. I wanted to know it all, glutton that I am.
[The trick to taming a beast: you don't touch it. Let it come close, closer still. Keep your hand steady so as to not startle it. Sit, and wait. Don't move when it circles you and drips blood all over your newly pressed dress. Hand outstretched, never touching. Wait for it to push its snout against your palm by itself.]
Time flows by. You bite, I bite back. I wrestle you to the ground with my words (I love you, I love you) and tend to your wounds the best I can while you thrash and writhe in my hold. And how cruel the world must have been to you, that my venom never even made you flinch, but my love brought you down to your knees. And how cruel I was, to keep giving it you, when these simple three words seemed to pain you so.
At one point, telling you to rest doesn't become a fight. You fall limp under my hold, trusting. And one day, you take my hand and press it to your bared throat. Steady, unwavering. Dark eyes blazing. Kill me, you say, I can take it, if it's you.
But isn't that the thing of it all. I never once wanted to carve a mark of my own with my claws on your skin, where countless others have already left scars in their place. I place my hand on your pulse, rabbit fast and just as delicate. A sheep in a wolf's hide. A beast, but not. I tilt your chin down and press a kiss against your head [closed mouth, canines tucked inside], never hurting.
It's been almost a decade now. Your hair is shorter, and I've taken all the knives I can out of your body and watched you stitch up the places I couldn't reach. These days, I don't need to watch to know you won't use your teeth to bite into your already bleeding wound; they only help you tear off the gauze when you can't find your scissors.
I think of you, and a memory so fresh I could still taste it comes to mind: your head on my shoulder, our legs tangled together. Me wearing my ugly green shirt. Safe. You are not bleeding. I can breathe easy. We are okay.
A simple truth- I'm going to write about you for the rest of my life. About the pills and the fucked up head and the dark circles and the wounds that never seem to end, but mostly about your laugh and your jagged teeth that I love so dearly and the sunlight in your smile and the way you bloom around the people you love. I'm going to write about you again and again, because I love you so much that it makes me dizzy sometimes, the enormity of it. You might have to leave when the time comes, but not because you want to. No, they would have to pry you away from my side. You won't leave this place without a fight.
But for now we are together and I love you. You have always been beautiful and your teeth sharp. You kiss my cheek and your canines scrape against my skin, leaving a kiss of their own. The weight of this, too, is staggering- you could kill me, but you choose to hold me instead, just as I do you.
I'm going to write about you so much that when you're old and grey you would have no choice but to smile because there, in your room, taking up space is the proof of my love, in the form of mounds and mounds of notes and letters. Now I tell you I love you, and you tell me you love me too. Three words aren't enough, because at this point, this is more than just love. You are more than love. So I take my pen and sit. My hand is steady. I write:
I love you, I love you, I love you.
And I will draw my last breath writing those words, because it will never be enough. But it will be mine, and it will be true.
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