Loving Him

I can’t convince my Keith that the wars are over. Still, he aches and pains from the misfortunes of loves betrayal. He is still in defense. I wish I could climb inside his mind and nurture the tortured there. I hope to heal his PTSD with the grace of my touch or the stiffness of my voice. I have tried. I can not. I betray him in his thoughts unwillingly yet; I arouse his ability to love past his pain. I wish I knew how to control my powers to ease his anxious heart. My whispers haunt him. “I will not hurt you.” My lies haunt him, and even in his unwillingness to trust ultimately, he is the only man with the decency to love me correctly. He is the only love that I have ever seen myself so clearly in and so clearly with. He is a force. He can grant me peace with the slightest of intentions. He is fever with the smallest touch, and still, there is a glitch in the system of the way that I love him. I am not sure if it was due to the poisons before him or my inability to cleanse it all away, but I am ashamed with myself for being too much of a coward to be on the front lines. It seems I am always playing it safe with him, only giving 100% when skies are clear, and there are no chances of rain in the forecast. Meanwhile, I watch him get soaked for me. I watch him fight the forcing winds and the raging waters to save me, to love me and to keep me. He asked to marry me. He can see us together further in time, and all I can muster is a WHY? Why me, why now, why like this and why in this lifetime. I am so in love, and I am so disgusted with my anger. I sit and ponder his rareness and what the fuck I could’ve possibly done to have him. I am in awe of him. I love who he is. I love who he is with me. I hate who he will become if he thinks he will have to live without me. He is transparent without intention. I so clearly see him when he’s pretending. I see him convincing himself that he is serious, he will go, but is looking for me ever to tell him if he is free. I can bet, if he ever read this, he would ask me how long I’ve known that I’ve had this magic over him. I would reply, since the first time I tried to leave. I could never forget the stains your face left on my heart when I saw you trying to be strong when you were weak. I begged you never to hold it back from me. You tried, but I know you too well. All your colors have shown. I have known you since the beginning of time. I know you even in the past.When I hear your stories, I can tell that you were a bud once, clipped from its roots much too early. I could guess that you were bound to women before me that used you for your benevolence because you are its definition. You are a bright sweet-scented flower, and your beauty enticed them. Their intention was only to possess you without understanding the anatomy of your roots. Selfishly they watched you wither, and there was nothing more they cared to do. I watched you; I watch you still, struggling to sprout your roots again. I hate how they parched you and left you with fear. I hate how you starved yourself of your photosynthesis, your ability to survive. In shame, I was almost her. In the blink of an eye, I could be her I hate that my waters aren’t always pure enough but trust, I will never leave you in drought. I will always water our love, even if these words still confer him with doubt.

Some stains leave colors.

I can’t convince my friend to leave the war. He believes it is his duty to fight. I tell him, it is not. Still, he rises from sleep in a panic with no home and no hand to hold. I don’t say that as if any hand will do. No, it must be hers. He doesn’t awake alone, no. The problem is, he is alone regardless of who he is with because it isn’t her skin. Why was her skin so special? I looked it over repeatedly trying to find it. I could not. I guess I would have to touch it or kiss it or make love to it to see. Maybe it isn’t even her skin at all. Maybe it is soul deep. Maybe it is the most beautiful storm I will never be able to witness. I searched for this storm in me. My love has shown me yet; I still can not find it. Not to say that my worth is empty, but to say that, with everything I have offered, I do not deserve him. He would argue that statement to be untrue. I have doubts that either of them would agree though we are not special. We are only the importance that our men have chosen to root from our veins to theirs. When our men chose to love us, their love for us was deemed unmovable. It is a drug, and they will overdose on it time and time again. Staring death right in the eyes, they will proceed to give. They will proceed to protect what’s grown into major parts of how they see themselves. If she, is how he sees himself I would argue he needs to look again. If I am what my lover sees when he looks at himself, I have a bone to pick with the both of us. The beauty and beast of it all are that, for them, their minds cannot process us being unworthy of their love. They only see what they have always seen from the beginning. So, I get the privilege of loving him still. One that I am truly unworthy to have. She gets the privilege of being loved by him still. In all her unworthiness, he finds himself smitten still, only with her. He has only ever made room for one woman. He, undoubtedly would give his life, and coincidently has, for her. No matter where he strayed, he remained always connected to her. He married her. I don’t think the world could have prepared him for the possibility of her deceit. I know he sure as hell didn’t see the day that his whole world would start to shatter. His unnatural will to love her never seems to leave. He is of two minds trying to decide where they lie with each other amid lying with another. I feel the desperation in his voice, trying to piece together the madness of his love for her with his pain for her. I see denial casting its shadows over his head, but he loves it there. He loves to dance with his thoughts that maybe this hiccup was just a speedbump and they will be all the wiser because of it. If not now than in a similar place in time, thinking that he can hold on to his innocence of her. I should tell him that it fades. I should tell him that the longer the pain lasts, the deeper the stains left. Even if I did, he would proceed with loving her, no matter how long or how gone she is. I can say, there is someone better out there, and he will reply, but I have already found her. I could say that he deserves better than what she is offering. He will swear that he knows, but insists that she is still the one that he wants. She is still the only one his heart will love. She is his only fish. She is his peace and violence. She is his noise. She will be his silence.

Some colors, leave stains.