Falling Slowly

Falling Slowly

I don't know what I'm writing. Sometimes that happens. My fingers reach for the keys the same way a child might reach for her pacifier. At that point, it's not a story that needs to get out. It's a quiet need that needs a voice. Today my voice is the pain I keep at arm's length. A dream dies. A promise to stay with someone always, love always, care for always cannot be kept. And even though it was my choice to release my heart, it pains me to do so. I let go of something that I have been holding onto so tight that my knuckles are white. I've held on against every logical thought in my head. A great wrong has been committed. And try as I did, I cannot forget it. I cannot forgive it.

In the storm of all that, I found a sanctuary. I knew I would be safe there: safe from the chaos that is my world right now: safe from the turmoil in my head. He was everything I thought he would be. He had the kindest eyes I have ever looked into. I found an embrace that was like the eye of a hurricane. I could close my eyes there. I could breathe there. In the sweetness of his closeness, we found passion. My body hadn't been touched by another in over a decade. But something within him knew just what I needed. He kissed me the way I wanted to be kissed. His hands found all the places that would ignite my body. One by one, my defenses melted away. And I opened up my whole body to him.

My body fully satisfied by our pleasure exchange, I lied there in his arms. There, I felt that perhaps my heart opened up to him in its foolish way. It did not heed my warning. Love is a risk I would never take again. Trust cannot be possible. "Don't fall," I warned myself as I reached for him in the night. It was almost as if he heard these quiet pleas, because everything he did seemed designed to capture that which I would not offer. He smiled his sweet smile. He played his music. He sang his song. So, before I could stop myself, I turned in the middle of the night whispering words of love.

Love, goddam it! I cannot love. It's not supposed to happen. Neither of us was truly free to be tangled with another. Despite my fears, my heart reached for him. And when he would not answer, I wept. I began to think that this connection between us was just in my head. Perhaps he feels nothing for me and is just happy to take my body. He has no intention of taking my heart, my soul. Part of me was relieved if he only wanted my body. "I'm safe," I thought. But that's not the case at all. My regard for him is not dependent on his for me. Unrequited as my feelings may be, they lie under the surface of each kiss, every touch. I cannot deny that it was my heart that wanted his kiss as much as my body did. The risk of our connection was mine alone. I'm falling in love. And my desperate search for anything to save me has failed.

Falling slowly...