promises

I have a special brand of tears for you. They have a personalized taste as they glide down my cheeks and into the cracks of my uncensored lips. They are salty and sweet and explosive. They are bitter with repressed words and adolescent angst that clings to the corners of my mind.
For months I had forgotten the taste of those tears. For months I had forgotten the way that they sting, the way that they pierce my eyes- laughing at my resistance to the inevitable breakdown they promise.

Crying for you is like riding a bike. I haven’t had my feet on the pedals in so long but the second I begin to move my legs that old familiar feeling washes over me and I am soaring down abandoned streets. I am traveling back to places in time I tried so hard to leave behind because I was terrified they would define me. I was terrified they would cut me off from the happiness I found in your pride and your smile and the way you put exclamation points at the end of your text messages. I abandoned my past because I wanted so badly to believe in the sweet seduction of a glittering future filled with freedom and trust and getaways. I would rather be hurt by the truth than be loved for a lie. I lose some small piece of self I have managed to shape and mold and fill with color over these 18 years.

I can’t make promises that will someday destroy us both. Promises that will fill your blue eyes with expectations and mine with a burning resentment.. I won’t say okay, but I will promise to love you. I will promise to try to be a woman you can be proud of. No strings attached. I will promise to forgive. and forgive. and forgive. I will promise to never stop telling my truth because even when it brings pain that pain is REAL, and raw, and authentic. That pain is beauty in disguise. That pain will bring revelations and miracles. After that pain brings the poison tears I know so well.

For so long I have been blocked. I put my fingers on the keys and nothing comes. I have lacked inspiration because I have been trying to write something pretty. Something wholesome. Something that will warm hearts instead of awakening my own. Now I know, I find myself in these words. I find my truth in between the run on sentences and typos. I find love. No matter what I write. I find love.

I hope you can find it too <3