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.