I Know NowWhy You Said ItAs He Tells Me He Loves MeTells Me I Should Open Up MoreAs He Tells Me He Loves

I know now Why you said it As he tells me he loves me Tells me I should open up more  As he tells me he loves me I feel the words clawing their way up my throat 'You don't even know me' I know now why you said it

And I do not blame you

Each morning we wake and she holds my betrayal in her hands and sets it gently down and we go on with the day.

Absolutely Beautiful...

“Love is the look she gives me when we both come from work and we’re tired, but one of us has to figure out what dinner will be, and so we both go into the kitchen, put our hands on our hips, furrow our brows at what’s in the fridge. Love is each of us showering before bed, one after the other. We can’t shower at the same time, because we like very different temperatures of water, and that’s love too. I brush my teeth and she pees. The fog in the mirror gives way to a portrait of the two of us preparing to sleep. It’s a portrait of love, and we look at it every night. Love is the way her neck smells. That’s where it’s strongest, the side of her neck. And I lean into it and I breathe in, and I remember what it means to live with another person. Love is the hours we spend under a blanket on the couch, and love is also the hours we spend apart, earning a living so that we can return to the couch, once more lie down together. Love is the beat of the heart and the passage of air and it’s the circulation of fluids and it’s the equilibrium of all the functions that sustain us. Love is the absence of all she could say to me. It’s knowing that there is pain and choosing to never activate it. Not as a single choice made once and left secure forever, but a daily choice. Each morning we wake and she holds my betrayal in her hands and sets it gently down and we go on with the day. Love is not freedom. But freedom isn’t inherently good, there can be terrible freedom and wonderful captivity. Love is wonderful captivity. It is a constraint from which you never wish to escape. Love in the morning is a cup of coffee made just the way she likes it. And love at noon, as the way the sun through her hair makes an imprint on my breathing. And love in the afternoon, when I nap alone but nap knowing that she is pacing around the house somewhere. And her motion is near my stillness. And love in the evening, as a laying of hands and a stretching of limbs. And love in the quietest hour of night, when in a moment of wakefulness between hours or dreaming, I hear the soft hiss of her sleeping and feel what birds must feel when nesting.”

— Alice Isn’t Dead, Part 3, Chapter 10: “An Ending”

Our love was Coffee lots of milk Tea extra sugar Our love was Light left on for you at home Brushing gloved hands on Fall walk Our love was Handmade Gifts Bad jokes Our love was  Deep breath sighs Domestic Life Our love was Cooking pasta with the wooden spoon Conversations about the weather Our love was Christmas Carol  Candygram Our love was  Casual Closeness Comforting Caress

The Dreamer and The Chef - Excerpt from the poem The Ways in Which I Have Been Loved

“Shall I stab you it the heart?”

She is sitting on my lap in the middle of the empty marble ballroom floor. I take in lungfuls of her, but every breath that comes in must come out. I pray her scent is tattooed on me, on my bare skin.

And I know I will have to wash her blood off and along with it will go her smell and I know that is the point.

“No...it is not a sure thing. I may just bleed,”

She turns her head, just slightly, as though to get more comfortable.

“You should probably slit my throat,” I stiffen, but she picks up a palm and presses a kiss to it and I try to breathe. I really do try. I promise.

“Andrea…” she presses our arms back down across her waist.

“I love you Lucy,”

My grip on the knife is sweaty. She places a firm moist hand over it and places it above or other two arms wrapped around her waist. Poising to strike.

“I want you to remember. He is trying to break you,”

“I love you,” I shake my head, close my eyes, my voice cracks. 

“Andrea, he is trying to break you,”

“He cannot break what is already broken,”

“Listen to me,” and so I do. Shut out that haunting music. Shut out the burning of Emanuelle's gaze. Shut out the pounding of my heart. Shut out the voice that is screaming for me to cover her with my body and let them try to pry her out of my bloody broken hands. Dare them to take her from my lifeless body. Shut out the pleas from my heart to do it now. To do it know and be over with it.

“Remind him that though you are delicate and beautiful like porcelain and may be shattered on this ballroom floor, that when he comes to collect the fractured shards, when he tries to step all over you, remind him you will cut the soles of his feet and leave his fingers scared.”

She tightens her grip on my hand with the blade. I am not sure if she is trying to assure me or is afraid I will plunge into my own heart.  

“Andrea, do you remember once...I asked you if you remember what your homeland was like? I asked you if you remembered Spain. I asked you if you had forgotten...do you remember?”

I shake my head against her neck. She is such a light thing in my lap. So light. So free. A bird. A bird in a cage. Caged in life. Caged in this room.

“You told me,” a shuddering breath, “you told me that those memories were tucked in the cramped dusty corners of your mind, sealed tight, but always there. Do you remember? You told me you kept your happiness there...to hide it from him. You told me--you told me some things were intangible. That they could not be taken. Seen and felt...but never grasped. Never taken. Your will is intangible Andrea. You soul is intangible. Our love is intangible. In keeping it from him...do not keep it from yourself. I love you so so much, and they cannot take it.”

“I love you too Lucy, I love you so much. I am so sorry. So sorry,”

“Do not be sorry Andrea. Be unapologetic. Exist unapologetically. I will always be here Andrea, I will never leave you. I swear to you that. But you must live. You must live for both of us. You have so much life left. So much life in you. I will wait for you and we will have eternity together.”

And here she was. The soft, Catholic, maid I had met on a Saturday afternoon as she fitted me for a garden party dress. If there was anyone who could make me believe that a God existed it was her. Lucy. My angel. My salvation. My redemption. Lucy. If the gates of Heaven did not open to her then what hope was there for the rest of us. And perhaps I could cling to that. If she was being torn away from me as a torturous lesson, maybe it was because the splendour of the heavens could no longer wait to be reunited with the long lost piece of themselves.

Except from the short story Dance With Her 

We act as though we know each other. We do not. We act as though we need each other. We do not. We act as though we love each other. We do not. But perhaps I like your company. And perhaps I crave existence.

Everything I Never Told You

Our love was Tightening a corset while gripping a bedpost Our love was Thrown Kitchen Chairs  Shattered Bathroom Mirror Our love was  Shut eyes Dark hickeys  Our love was Overflowing glass of wine, sticky hands, sticky table Heavy Hotel Curtains Our love was Deep wound, just clotting Counting seconds on a broken clock  Our love was  Forget your day; Forget my name Lips sealed; Mind shut Our love was Wolf Eyes; Dark Night Makeup sex; No fight Our love was No goodbye Just gone

I forget his name, I don’t think I ever knew it Excerpt from the poem The Ways in Which I Have Been Loved