callused
When I was a girl, I used to dream of eyes that would look without batting, touches that never hesitated, gazes that were direct and held and I never got them. Even when I hid myself away packaged neatly and presentable because hiding was easier than fighting and I needed all the energy I could save.
Anyways, the voices in my mind were louder and meaner than the voices that whipped across sand like lashes; my heart was so used to its loneliness and I didn’t know just how callus it was until I tried to listen for the beat of it and heard silence.
Then I met you.
You saw me how I wanted to be seen and for the first time I didn’t have to wonder if it was all wishful thinking and if I could be to someone what I’d been to myself. And I was, and you were, and it was good. You looked and kept looking held and kept holding and you never blinked and you stayed.
Until you didn’t.
And when I see you, my heart jumps I remember you! before I can catch it and tame it and hold it and cage it trap it like every other dream I was foolish enough to dream.
But I do remember you.
We reminded each other that underneath the callus is beating tissue that’s soft and delicate and still somehow bruises and it’s just such a shame that it took the sinew ripping and blood dripping for our hearts to realize they still beat in time.