Love, Cait

I know what I have put you through.
I have dripped candle wax on your fingers
and asked you to sew security blankets, and I am sorry for that.
I have led you into thorn bushes
poured blood onto the soil and blamed the roses.
Time and time again
I have blindfolded you with the neck ties of angry men,
cinched them so tightly that stars popped behind your eyelids
and your baby hairs broke.

I know that I have passed up feather beds,
have sought out coffins.
I know that there is grass along the path, surely,
but my feet seem to find the glass shards
and I lose time, waking up in needles.

Then again, there are days when
I know that I am bleeding, but
maybe I have forgotten whose fault it really was, was it
the roses, was it my ankles, should I have walked
into the garden in the first place?

I have been told that the men who hold the guns
are the ones who do the killing,
that they should be held responsible,
but I still worry that my teeth are hungry for their bullets.

My heart of my heart of my heart believes

that there is a happy ending in here somewhere,

and I am sorry that I spent so much time smearing it with black ink

choking and unable to swallow the possibility of possibility 

I'd like to say things will be different. 

I'd like you to trust me on this one.

But the track record is bleak, and I understand if you don't.

I promise I'll be here either way.

I promise I'm not leaving this time. 

What It Really Feels Like

the last time I wrote about you, I said
this is what it feels like to stay
and then we spent a full year leaving.
we spent a full year on a seesaw
one of us rooted to the ground, feet planted in desperation
the other rocketing toward some wild escape
and then trading places
never in the same place at the same time

until now.

how did we finally get here, my sweet summer breeze,
to this quiet spot in the grass
giggling like school children when we find a shiny bug, or tell a stupid joke
rolling around, kicking up pollen, sneezing, and laughing some more

the last time I wrote about you, I said
this is what it feels like to stay
and I don't think I knew what it meant.

it was a pearl I had picked up in low tide, a beacon,
a wish that I whispered to you at dusk,
an incantation,
and I suppose it came true,
even though our path to staying was midnight black and too sharp
and we cut our fingers on the handrails, crying
reaching for each other even in the pitch darkness
even through eclipse season,
we stayed
even through the leaving
we stayed

and after a full year of hacking away at the underbrush together
one fallen branch at a time
we saw the sun through the trees
and we followed it.
day by day, we followed it
like a covenant 

and now we don't rush anymore.
we don't leap away from the ground most days,
we don't dive headlong into defeat,
we don't leave.
we stay
in the dappled sunlight,
resting in meadows along the way
we stay
and we keep walking
and we do it together
and I know what it means now.