Remember the first time, the collapse in chest, the naked shift in soul as something whole spilled free and splintered, left cuticles clawing at skin, at bone, realizing skin and bone and a peristaltic pump beneath were all you had to wrestle with.
Remember the first, before the break. The glee, all giggles, goof, and early morning orgasms. Small nothings and grand gestures. And late night orgasms. All walls dissolved to the point she thought it was funny she could shit in front of you and all you could do was love her more. A love like a puppy runs. Like it doesn’t need to learn the steps of others. Like it already knows how, like it was born knowing, naked and free and clumsy as first steps. Remember it was a love like that that broke you.
Remember what it felt like. Don’t forget. Don’t heal. Never heal. Hack and slash the memories all over that pump she left you until the carvings calcify. Paint the calcium red. In the absence of feelings recount memories of feelings when circumstances call on you to feel. Everyone will think you’ve just been hurt, and you have. Battle scarred hearts are more interesting anyways. And if you build your walls high enough, people can’t see what you’re not hiding.
But most importantly, always remember to tell yourself that it’s worth it. The sack of leather rawhide that hangs in your chest, the mechanical pump it cradles, that foreign calcium scrape, remember to tell yourself they’re worth not knowing that naked split a second time. Tell yourself as soon as you wake up and before you fall sleep, and whenever you feel the spin of wood drill in chest, the friction become heat dancing sparks into tinder, remember to stamp them out before they can catch. You know that sort of fire. That warm incipient burn, the storm of torchlight, the ember wash, the slow rotting smolder that consumes the source and leaves nothing but bits of trace carbon and ash. Tell yourself the process isn’t worth the result. Tell yourself the dance isn’t worth the death. That a sterile heart is better than a broken one. That numb is better than naked. You know it isn’t true, but tell yourself anyways.
Remember the first, before the break. The glee, all giggles, goof, and early morning orgasms. Small nothings and grand gestures. And late night orgasms. All walls dissolved to the point she thought it was funny she could shit in front of you and all you could do was love her more. A love like a puppy runs. Like it doesn’t need to learn the steps of others. Like it already knows how, like it was born knowing, naked and free and clumsy as first steps. Remember it was a love like that that broke you.
Remember what it felt like. Don’t forget. Don’t heal. Never heal. Hack and slash the memories all over that pump she left you until the carvings calcify. Paint the calcium red. In the absence of feelings recount memories of feelings when circumstances call on you to feel. Everyone will think you’ve just been hurt, and you have. Battle scarred hearts are more interesting anyways. And if you build your walls high enough, people can’t see what you’re not hiding.
But most importantly, always remember to tell yourself that it’s worth it. The sack of leather rawhide that hangs in your chest, the mechanical pump it cradles, that foreign calcium scrape, remember to tell yourself they’re worth not knowing that naked split a second time. Tell yourself as soon as you wake up and before you fall sleep, and whenever you feel the spin of wood drill in chest, the friction become heat dancing sparks into tinder, remember to stamp them out before they can catch. You know that sort of fire. That warm incipient burn, the storm of torchlight, the ember wash, the slow rotting smolder that consumes the source and leaves nothing but bits of trace carbon and ash. Tell yourself the process isn’t worth the result. Tell yourself the dance isn’t worth the death. That a sterile heart is better than a broken one. That numb is better than naked. You know it isn’t true, but tell yourself anyways.