Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Entrance and Exit

I don't know why I let you in.

Maybe it was me- in my want of something different, something delicate.
Something I had never seen.
But you teased my eyes, and twisted my sight to notice something that wasn't even there-
A whole human being, body and soul laid out, not for the taking, but for the deepening, for the healing.
Maybe it was my need to prove to myself that once again, I could feel.
That I could long, that I could desire, after so many times only being the object of such.
I had to see that I could command it, and not only receive.
Maybe it was your eyes.
Maybe it was the sadness I had seen in them for so long until that moment when it turned itself into fear.
A fear that I just couldn't give legs to by turning you away.
Maybe it was the wasteland that had spread itself before us for a fortnight prior- and of the land mines that I knew lay quietly beneath.
I couldn't bear the thought of you tiptoeing your way- backwards and blindfolded- back from where we had come so far together, or so I thought.
Maybe it was your confession- the honesty you had revealed to me earlier without even an ounce of hesitation or shame.
Uncertainty on your sleeve as I had only ever seen once before- and I was drawn to it again.
Maybe it was the darkness that swelled around us- so quite and deafening all at once.
To have seen you fade back into it and return from where you came would have crippled my deepest core- not for myself, but for you and how I know it would have made you feel.
Maybe it was the fact that for the first time in what felt like forever, I wanted to show, rather than be shown.
To discover, rather than be known.
To prove, rather than hunger for the evidence myself.
I knew that what I was ready to give is what you were unsure of if you were ready to receive- and I weighed the cost.
I never found you wanting.
I never saw your damage.
I never trembled at the history you laid bare.
And I never once wished that you had stayed outside.
You occupied the empty space in my inner room for as long as I knew you would allow yourself, and the curtains absorbed our messes with a calmness I have never seen.
And as the sun rose, your eyes faded to black, and my breathing was the only rhythm to be heard.
You stayed until the light was high, rose, and took your leave- the one I never assumed to be as final as it has proven itself to be.
But still, I am whole.
And still, I wait.
Still, I sit breathless with the thought that you may return- carrying with you the missing pieces of yourself that you set out so quickly to find.
Still, I wonder and wander, hoping that my constant movements will bring you to my door again.
That once again I will be faced with the question or whether or not to open it.
But I know what my answer will be.
I have known all along the sound of every single answer I seek- save one:
I know why I let you in...
But I will always wonder what made you come.