Untitled #9

the giddiness bottled in my stomach

escapes, flutters up and up

to my heart and then my

lips as they flutter into a smile

at the sight of you

my first love

so beautiful and yet there lies more beyond that

and as my eyes seep you in, glowing and trembling,

still visible despite the gloom of the

murky winter come the near death of this fleeting year

i am drawn in by the shadows that lie within you

within these evanescent moments,

when the yearning for you is finally satiated

reality sets in, shattering this beautiful little snow globe I live in with you

then do i realize

love is not simple nor is it always pure

it resembles the gray dense clouds that cast shadows upon my memories of you, memories where I can finally touch you

it is then that I wonder, am I the other woman?

but wasn’t she? and the one before?

place holders for the moments between our

discrepant and torturous and captivating love

but then i realize

we are all

place holders

for you

before me came many, as there were many in the midsts of our twisted and deep rooted love story

they take root in me, settle deep in my breast and my bones

the perfect soil to grow within.

why was it so simple for you?

to shift me from the center of your universe and set me aside,

your Ceres, nothing but a lump of misshapen rock mistaken for something more.

And so as that realization dawned upon you, you went and found your Pluto.

And when she too, was nothing more than a facade

you came back into the familiarity of my arms,

the unconditionality of my love.

And this second time when I was yours, and you were decidedly mine

it was still not enough, I cannot be more than what I am,

though I tried and tried to mold myself into the missing puzzle piece amidst your reality.

And when I could not be such…you set me aside.

You left me there

my body deformed and broken;

a bloody work of Picasso, ivory bones snapped and jutting out.

I could no longer recognize myself

all because I tried to adjust myself to your world…

And so you found your Eris

and dabbled with her, but my tide pulled you in once more, once more we pulled one another in,

two who gravitate towards one another

a cycle to repeat, again and again

But I cannot help but think…

My love, our love, it is nothing more than an affair

with a shadow cast

much larger, longer, and darker than one.

And the both of us, huddled within one another’s arms,

gaze upon the shadow but dare not look at what truly the shadow is cast by.

This shadow, we mistake for Love’s shadow.

And my heart soars when you whisper in my ear

about how strong and great this love we have is.

But then you glanced, once,

back at what cast this shadow,

and when you saw the lie we lived in the shade of

you fled,

and I still stand here

under the cast of this shadow of falsified Love.

I still stand here and

reminisce

because despite this Love being false or dark,

it is all that has ever made me feel so whole.

It is the closest to Love I have ever been.