to feel

as i sit here with my new bbq, and my new natural charcoal that you taught me to find,
i listen to john, the rabbit you brought me sprawled out next to the open sliding glass door, smoke and kangaroo scent coming all through my house.
  i realize, in my discovering myself this way, surrounded by abundance you brought me, that i was never able to be myself. and it had nothing to do with you.
and i'm crying. i wanted so much to meet you that way.
and i just didn't know how. i just didn't have it.
fuck, you knew it too.
and i'm crying, i'm so sorry for it. and then i realize how much you tried for me too. how much you fought for us, how much you built and loved and how you must be just as sorry.
sorry we are, for what we couldn't give each other.
and there it is.
so much love. just hovering there between visas and cultures and wars and regime changes and failed revolutions and abuses we couldn't see coming and which held us down. love between rebellion and loyalty all tangled up together, between language barriers and indecisiveness and confidence and shifting feelings back and forth. love between us.
   i didn't know it, i didn't understand it (because of course we don't) but i always had more than i needed, i always had as much love as i could hope for, right next to me.

   and so, when i listen now, even through the grabbing and the tears and hopes and fears...i still do have enough.
   as i was petting charlie and crying, i felt you coming to the door and you did. you knocked and i knew exactly what i wanted to do was to pour all that understanding to you and appreciation for you into a hug. and i did. and it was enough.
it's always enough.
nothing you have done has changed my love. and nothing can change it. it's just right here, inside me. always with me.
   thank you.
i am so grateful for this love, which has opened my heart like no other love has, it's true. even now, teaching me to open more.
i am so grateful for my life, this chance to breathe and to feel.

each day is a year
feeling
unfeeling
freedom
chains
i see a message from two days ago and it feels like another lifetime
i love this
i hate this

my waist is finally the size i wanted.
the dresses will fit now.

my life before wasn't right,
someone else's pace

now that it's all mine, i can't remember anything.
or, i remember things, but nothing seems to stick.

i metaphorize the world.
you were a bridge
i was a bridge
we are a forest
i am floating in an ocean

but really, the imagery is more beautiful illusion
exactly like the beautiful illusion of you and me
no more or less real, nothing to be held indefinitely

i have regretted so much.
i have wished i did not give away my first iphone and tight clothes to a man who also took
my faith.
i have wished i did not give so much time to fighting those long distance fights and crying useless tears.
i have wished i did not buy the house in that flat town.
why didn't i listen to the warning in my heart the night before i signed the papers?

the months before i was married i was tormented by panic and anxiety. depression followed.

i wish i had known i didn't have to do it, and that my vow of un-forever was the red flag i was waving at myself
 
    i regret the way i left, finally.

i spent two years in a new foreign land trying to adjust, trying to hide, pretending all kinds of things and not being on my feet
  i regret falling into that dreamland for those years.

you, though.
you, i am glad i agreed to shisha and to see you again.
i used to sit still in your presence as you went about your life, totally absorbed in a physical sensation of total peace and bliss. i didn't know what that was, or why. but i knew i was good in that space.

there was never a crash or boom or fireworks. it was soft. just pure soft.
relaxed. somehow familiar.
i am glad for the way i felt like i was home with you. from the first night we sat on the couch together, i felt at home.

i wish i had been able to trust it.

i wish you had been able to trust it.

you fell off too.
you ran away and hid. it wasn't only me whose wounds were showing.

i still don't regret it. i wish we could have been less afraid.

maybe the time you spent in exile was much like mine.

survivors.

i meant to wrap you up in my safest blanket and also for you to be my shield.
      i am careful now, remembering how i have regretted, that i do not give too much, or take too much, or lean too much, or push too much.
    i have wailed for men whose whole lives have not held as much strength as your last wednesday morning.
  I have given away treasures to men whose whole lives have not contained as much integrity as you show to a rival team.
 
     you, stripped of everything you thought was yours, (country, family, friends, security, language, freedom, justice, belonging, future) have built for me an empire of security.

   you, with shaky hands and unstable footing, have tended a path for me so beautiful and solid that i weep with gratitude.

     as much as i gave, you gave more.
as honest as i was, you told more truth.
   as safe as i made you feel, i felt most protected.


 

     
             

you fall out of love with me
on purpose
like taking shoes off
like a haircut
the same way you decided to fall in love when i kissed you in the car as you dropped me off home
the same way you decided to fall in love putting me on your lap in your car and talking about going to your country
the dreaminess you dunked your head under the the way we snorkeled in the bay on a late summer evening
the way you decided to open that wounded heart to a possibility you hadn't considered
the way you
wouldnt.
let.
go.
i told you to not wait for me
you didnt listen. you decided to fall in love.

you fall out of love with me
on purpose
like finding the pup a new home where she can be with her own kind
like deciding i am not your kind or you are not mine and she is not ours
the same way you decided to fall in love as we cried on the green couch saying goodbye
that turned out to be a long hello
the same way you decided to fall in love asking for a life's commitment cuddling in our bed
the sweetness you wrapped us in, my fearful heart and your warm love.

you fall out of love with me on purpose
like turning off a light in a room where i am yet standing with my eyes open

i cannot decide these things.
i cannot fall out of love with you on purpose
like i couldnt stop myself falling in love our first easter in the little hut, breathing our agave breath
the same way i couldnt stop myself falling in love when you joyously announced your mother's approval
   you.
gave me honey and bread on our first date
you.
cleaned my car and refined my messy beeswax
you.
moved us into the amazing house
you.
cuddled me every night until i believed in together and futures
you.
fall out of love with me on purpose
and i am still helpless as ever
to your whim