(A story of resistance and surrender)
The next morning it rained. I buttoned up a warm jacket and set out to find my feet again. Sleepless eyes squinting at the fine mist, I walked with the company of the question: had it really happened?
It had.
You made me want what I did not want to want. You made me ask for what I should never have asked for. You made me see that once the words were floating in space between us, I wanted it still. That’s proof, you told me.
And then.
You made me stumble over my shoelaces. You made me fall into the cold mud and demanded that I find pleasure in the way my bare fingertips hurt from the freeze. You asked me to look for you and, by failing to be there, you made me become my own refuge.
The two halves of me that I strung together that night had been floating untethered in the stars for too long. Before then, I could only see one at a time. But you made me see that I might reach for both, if I choose.
And I choose.
This is why I hate you and crave you all at once. This is why I bow in gratitude and spit on the floor when I hear your name.
Because both are my home. And in both I rest, patiently dying for the next time you do the things you do.
