B R E A T H E

d e c e m b e r

i have lived a life of a doe being raised by a pack of wolves

my father has broken more hearts than my brother has broken mirrors in our home

so, when i see a man who is gentle and kind, i cling to his tenderness like a litter of stray puppies clinging to the breast of their dead mother

the brute ness of men doesn't scare me

it feels familiar
it feels like home

it's when they're soft with their touch and sweet with their words that i feel such a strong wave of emotion that it nearly kills me

he with his saint like sensitivity drowned me in my own blood

he was nice
he wasn't like any man i knew

he fed the poor and cuddled with dogs

he collected records and recited poems

his wandering eyes were like a spinning globe of blue and green

he didn't put too much pressure on the paper when he wrote my name

and i romanticized the way he put out his cigarette every time i leaned in for a kiss

i still waited for his mask to break

i waited everyday for him to howl, to smash my ikea crockery, to dig his nails in my stomach, to crack my ribs, to break my heart

he never did

i grew tired of playing this one sided game and threw him out of my house, half naked, in the middle of a cold december night

he didn't come back and i started to miss his warmth

i thought of sending him the playlist i made for him

but then he found another woman to adopt a cat and horse with and i am still clinging to the love we shared

i'm still waiting for him to pull me out of my own grave that i dug with my talons

the ones that were passed down to me from my mother