You | a poem

My fingers were twisting together like an old tree’s roots, knotted and painful like the past I was explaining to you
You looked at me, your eyes full of patience as I stumbled over the words that were so hard to say
I told you of the times that hurt me deepest
I explained to you the reasons why I act the way I do sometimes
I relayed the moments of pure joy, pure sadness, pure ecstasy
And before I knew it, I let you into a room of my heart that I had never let anyone else in before
So quickly, so easily
I was able to bare my soul to you
And you listened
You laid there, propping yourself up so that you could look down on my face
Your other arm resting gently on my stomach, your hand closed around my side
You watched as tears spilled gently from my eyes, onto the pillow under my head
And I described myself to you
I told you that some days, I will forget why I am with someone like you, someone who deserves so much better than me, and you might have to remind me why you love me
Some afternoons, I will stumble in the way I treat you, or block you out because I’m afraid you’ll hurt me like others have before you, but I know that’s not fair to you because you’re nothing like them.
But please be patient with me when that happens
Just remind me that you’re you and not them
And some nights I will be sunken in deep silence and you won’t know how to pull me out of that forest of thoughts that fill my head
Sometimes I need to feel the sadness in order to let it go
And sometimes, I’ll share it with you, not for you to try to make me happy again
But simply because I don’t want to feel it alone
And when that sob began to rise in my chest, you gently laid a finger over my lips and said,
“Hey, I still love you.  I always will.”
And I knew in that moment that the only thing that would be able to drag me out of the entanglement of memories is that voice
That touch
That you.