Holding Hands in Holland

Hands that lead me,

   spin me and heal me;

       I feel lost and found and swept away.

Eyes that hold their gaze,

   tearing through the shame,

      seeing the softness I thought was lost.

Lips that graze my skin,

   raw and vulnerable,

      Breaking through my rusted armor.

I feel myself splitting open at your touch;

Torn between what was lost.

Trapped in this disguise.

I am desperate to escape you

   before you feel my brokenness. 

But then you pull me close:

"You don't need to run away anymore."

I am home.

I can love.

I can be loved.

Falling

I am in love with him. Desperately at times. Madly. Completely, I can feel my body melt and give at every touch. His breath on my skin sets me on fire.

And the way he looks at me… It’s as if not a single person in this world has ever actually seen me before. Like I have only seen shadows and distorted fun-house reflections mirrored off of other’s eyes. But his eyes are the truth.

And they swallow me up. And I forget my name. I forget the stories of who I used to be and who I thought I had to be after everything got smashed to pieces. 

All I see now is the raw, wild, writhing thing. This eternal being pressing up against the edges of her skin. A girl who dove into darkness. A girl who fought her way to the surface. Who is harder now, but finding her softness in his hands.

He has taken my broken, ugly pieces and examined each one. Turning them in his hands until, slowly, the edges lost their sharpness. He has patched my cracks with gold. 

Is this what love feels like?

I want to inhale you.
Feel your breath travel through me,
hot and wet in my mouth
burning my throat like whiskey.
Filling me up; all passion and desperation

I want to settle in your bones.
Wrap you around me like an old blanket,
soft and warm; your skin feels like home.
Your arms and legs tangled around me
so I forget where my own body still aches.

I want to fall inside your eyes;
they are wells of honey and fire that swallow me up.
Penetrating my deepest wounds.
Staring straight into the ugly dark spaces
I still have light. I still have softness.