"Those" Confessions

Missing you

Your touch

The constant need for your lips and skin against mine

It’s an unnatural obsession

Do I trust you?

There’s too much history now

I can’t even write how I feel because it’s all so mixed up

I know that I love you

I want to tell you

        But I don’t because I won’t hear it back

Or will I?

I can never tell underneath your solid exterior

Watching you break that summer, the summer you broke me

     I tried to fix it

                

                           You broke it more

I tried to fix it again

I'm feeling whole again, but there is a strong pull inside of me

“Stop. Do not fall further"

It’s an unnatural longing and obsession

"Too available", they say.

Becoming unavailable to those whom I love and care for is not in my nature

Is it a game?

Is that why you don’t answer the phone, but text me

Then choose so quickly to cut it off

Who are you with?

The feeling, the pull of curiosity is still so strong inside me

How do I make myself feel better?

Ignore it

Lie to myself

And then ignore it some more

I fell in love with you

Fell out of love, saying the whole time I did love you because I didn’t want anything to change

And now here I am in love with you again

What a ride

But you are so kind when we are together

You make me think

You make me want to be a healthier version of me

You make me giggle

You make me smile

You show me new things

You make me challenge what I think

Challenge my responses

You call me out (no one does that to me)

You make me responsible for what I say and do to myself and to you

You let me know when I’m being that crazy, unreasonable person

You love me like no one ever has

You hold me like no one ever has

You kiss me like no one ever has

You like “every side of me”

“Every version of me”

I love how we have nothing in common

I love our adventures

I love going to movies with you

I love how I can be so passionate and you look at me in wonder

I love that you understand my obsession with coffee

I love how you don’t like spicy food but I can’t get enough

I love that you will workout with me and you think I’m a beast even though I’m really not

I love how you think I’m beautiful even though I’m bigger than all the others you’ve been with

I love how soft your skin is

I love it when you keep your hair short

I loved it when you made us a huge breakfast and you just laughed at me because I was being silly the whole time

I love it when you take care of me even when I’m so stubborn

I love it when you’re surprised when I don’t freak out about something.  That face you make, “Are you really ok?”

I love your brown eyes

I love your little ears

I love your handsome face and perfect nose

I love how you see something and know instantly, “That’s a ‘Kayla’ thing"

I love how when I left you the first time you told me you couldn’t listen to certain songs because you thought of me

I love how I fell for you several times in several ways

I loved how you sang to me the first few times we ever hung out

I fell in love with you on those nights

I love how we met

All it took was one glance and that smile

I love your smile

I love it when you snore and all I have to do is move you and you’ll stop

I love how you began to leave things in my apartment immediately

I love how you called my apartment “home” one day

I love how you accidentally called me “My love” and tried to lie about how you “said something else”

I love how smart you are

I love your determination

I love your focus

I love you for all your backup plans

I love your touch

I love your lips

I love your body

I love your kiss

I love your mystery

KP 01/2015

Dance In the Innocence

Watching them was a transcendent experience

They were absolutely beautiful

Dancing in their innocence

There will never be another moment in their lives that they will ever feel more safe, more free, more beautiful, and more themselves than they did in that moment

A moment they all will forget

But she won’t

She gazed upon them through her veil of smoke and pain

She was jealous

She longed to go back

To forget

To undo all the pain and suffering she had caused

to her mother and father

The guardians who would give up anything for her

She drained them of all resources

Even their love faded for one another

They will try to deny it

It was only upon her departure they found the spark again

to her brother

The boy who she yelled at and was embarrassed of until recently

She didn’t realize she owed a part of herself to him

It is because of him she teaches

It is because of him she can love difficult people

It is because of him she learned patience

to a friend

She couldn’t handle him being different at the time  

She was young and inexperienced

The last words she said to him

How she stormed out like a child crying out for no reason

She hasn’t seen him in five years

She wants to make it right

She misses you.

She’s not that girl any more

to her first love

Why did she let you go?

        She loved him  

He changed her perspective and showed her what she could have and deserved

He’s gone now

She has been in love with the idea of him for seven years

Each year the pain lessens

But each year she strays from that perfect world he created

Continuing to grasp and cling tightly to imperfect and unhealthy lovers

Each just like or worse than the last

to her best friend of old

She was lost

Still is

She wishes you were here

Back in her life

to the sister who calls herself a slut

She recalls the men they have shared

At times she ponders where the fault lies

She started it

She should have left them alone

She thought it was ok because they weren’t with you

Now she wishes she could take it all back

She doesn’t know if you would take back what you’ve done

In fact, you might do it again?

But to you too, sister, she is sorry

to God

All the blessings He has bestowed upon her

She takes and takes

He still gives

He never leaves

Even if she does

to herself

Weak mind

Weak body

The horrific things she has made you

see

do

touch

taste

feel

How have you not left her?

How have you not given up?

She wants to dance and not know

To lift the veil

Wash her stained skin

and dance in the innocence

KP Revised 4/10/2015

Endgame

We aren’t going to make it

I know that now

I’ve known it all along

There were times when I didn’t care

Times when I loved you

--I still love you

Now it almost clear you never loved me

I’m not sure you ever could or can

Who would treat someone the way you treated me if they were in love?

But I know better, I’ve stayed when I should have left

It’s my fault too…..

If I wanted the pain to stop I’d stop it, wouldn’t I?

Or is it the fact that you make me just as happy as you make me sad?

Is that why I stay?

Because after years of being alone I don’t want to go without again?

There are no excuses

    no justifications

-just thoughts as to why…to make sense of nonsensical things

I wanted to scream “I love you” so many times and still do

But it wouldn’t matter? because nothing good would come of it

So, I’ll suppress the excitement

And never know your answer

Not the answer of your truest self

But the answer of your mind

of your lips

the words you know I want to hear

A month ago we were planning a holiday

All I could think was how you weren’t going to be there

how the people we were with weren’t going to be there

how I would be somewhere else

with other people

no you

you wouldn’t exist anymore

That’s cynical isn’t it?

How I’ve been thinking forward and you aren’t there…

How can I think you are there when you aren’t

When I’m not

You don’t think of me then you only think of me now

I know you care for me somewhat but you could never care more than you do now

At least I don’t think so, but then again who am I?

What would our future look like if we stayed together and you learned to love me?  To be faithful to me.

I know. Do you?

I’m a planner, a predictor, a outcome guru if you will

We would spend the next two years waiting for you to graduate, you would commision, we would move there, get married before or after we got there, I’d try and find work, and you would already have yours.  We would live happily for about a year before we got restless and want to have kids. I’d raise them in the church, we’d both plan for them, love them, give them what we could, you’re the good cop, I’m the bad cop.  I’d battle your mom to butt out of our lives, while your father loves at the right distance.  My parents love we would feel from afar because they never approved any way because you weren’t the “right kind of man” for me.  But never the less they love you because they love me unconditionally and would adore our children.  I would have to worry about your soul, because your faith isn’t that strong, and neither is mine, but I keep going because I believe and I know it’s an essential part to my being and I’d wish you felt the same way.  Who knows one day maybe I’d finally convince you.

Would we ever be able to have deep meaningful conversations?  As of now I miss those with other people.  We don’t really have those

It’s still unclear...imagine that.  

After our children grow, go through school, we admire their accomplishments, send them to college, and hope for the best.  You retire from the military eventually and I retire or keep working, because I like the work.  Would we travel? Or lay in bed and adore each other while watching a new sitcom we both enjoy….me adoring and admiring you rather, because we both know I do.  We’d celebrate our 30th, 40th, 50th anniversary….then one night after a wonderful and fulfilled life you would leave my side.  Why you first?  Because I know I can take the heartbreak and the pain.  I want to carry the burden for us, I don’t want you to know that kind of hurt.  I would live for a while admiring our children, their lives, their grandchildren, be grateful for the life, the love, friends, family, what you have given, what I’ve given, what God’s given, feel blessed and die happy and with a broken heart longing for you, for God, and for death. Because I know upon death I might get the opportunity to find what I’ve been longing for since you left my side and my whole life.

You are spontaneous, a thinker for the now, a feel good for the now, a real live 21st century man.

For you there is no far out future for us

There is a month, two months, maybe you see me three months from now?

You might see me on your graduation day?

But I don’t think you see me coming with you where you commission

Your mind ends there.

Everything is over there.

The endgame is there

I love you

Do you love me back?

The answer is clear

The rest of the answers are blurred

I know what to do

But do I do it?

Or do I hold out for the potential future?

Do I pick ours?

Do I pick yours?

Do I pick mine?

Ours ends ends when we die

Yours ends at commission

Mine ends now

Which one do I pick?

Each scenario has the same end result

We end up without each other….how mundane

    how meaningless