By Julie Tu
This is grace:
I thought contact
always meant
pain
but when we walk
you take my hand,
I look at you;
I'm smiling.
At first it felt like the world moved too far from the sun.
Now the distances between celestial bodies seem to match
the spaces separating earthly ones. They are all just right.
We will not freeze nor burn. The walk from one tree
to another is always the perfect number of steps. Time after
laying our heads down and waking again is how it is
meant to be. Travels, dreams, seasons, I would not
seek to alter any. You and I are not together.
We were. It was exactly right.
The Earth is 92.96 million miles from the sun
and God is good.
I will buy myself flowers.
I will write myself letters.
I will wrap my arms around
myself, I will look the mirror
in the eyes, I will love
the warmth of my own skin.
I am still learning words
for hurts I did not know
could ever be heard.
You’ve been so strong. It’s okay. It’s okay to cry. You’ve been fighting in a very long war between the expression and denial of oneself, not even knowing on which side you are. You are on the side of the ever acclaimed love whose name both opponents hail with only shields on both arms.
I know that you are a warrior because I see the way you surprise yourself with your own laughter. In those moments I celebrate not the victory of a side but the homecoming of a hero. Yes, you with your face buried under blankets, muting bodyracking sobs in your pillow, arms wrapped around yourself in an embrace you can finally admit you crave - you are my hero. And it’s okay to cry.
What a heinous crime
to have cheapened your design
in the name of some mockery of
true love.
Overwhelmed by
the beauty of
your binding up
and laying down;
your lifting up
and reaching out, I
am nothing but a thief,
am nothing but a fraud,
am nothing but
crying loudly from deep within
for all the times I tried to tie
as one together two, as if I
could do so more wisely than You -
but I am not any number of flesh!
For who can count a scattered heart?
Who can track portions so split, far apart?
Can any piece back the skin I have ripped?
Can the tendons so torn be whole, if
ever whole they were with which to begin?
Fractured Soul, You’re whispering,
though this soul continues to scream,
Fragile Soul, are you listening?
My hands are not hands like those of your past.
My heart is not one like those which have passed.
My love is not near the love of your past.
My Love, your life is not now the one which has died.
You ask for brokenness to be repaired,
but do you not know it cannot be so?
I will not gather the shattered;
I will remake completely anew.
This is healing:
to laugh sincerely
with wide open lips
more familiar with
a tortured grimace.
To hug unhesitatingly
with arms which have fought
a battle too often lost
to distance body from body.
To feel love(d) at all.
If you only knew the weight on my heart is your burden’s twin. If you could see the loveliness beyond reflections. You are worth the universe, but you trade your soul for sin. If you believed in true love, would you believe in me? If you trusted my words, would you believe in love? Yet you do not make love but fuck, and the body is equal but the heart is shattered. I made you for intimacy and you hide behind eye-deep beauty. I came to seek and you dressed in leaves. I formed your name from the wind and called it with my breath which courses through your lungs; lungs you use to push air into someone else’s name. What I have given you corrupt and distribute, what I have taken you fight to regain so that the pedestals of your heart may collect more names. You are my beloved, and I am your forever. I will not leave you for ruin. You will never end in shame. Flesh to flesh and spirit to spirit, I and each man and not even for you, but especially for each.
Shadows speak but they can’t listen;
my ears burn from words I have been given.
Mind is a gallery; memories co-written.
Will we learn, will we learn from within?
Morning is farewell,
outside is primed white
for show and tell.
God? God.
God. God?
Open eyes, closed hands are mine.
Four chambers of stone in my ribs reside.
Lay me bare as you were hung;
pierce my spirit as they lanced your side.
Move this stone as after three nights;
give a heart of flesh paid for with blood.
You died so I could die;
You lived so I could live;
You lived so I could die;
You died so I could live
You are as bad as dead to me
when you are miles away and
the tears won’t stop
and I am stuck in a loop
saying, “You’re worthy,
you’re worthy
you are worthy,”
and you are thinking of cold
and I am speaking of fire;
He’s sleeping easy and I
need you to wake up -
Tomorrow and the next day,
too, I’ll keep begging you
to trade the places
of your feet, to
walk when your knees
are weak and you
can’t find any
words to speak.
I can’t find any words to speak.
Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me.
The very thought breaks me inside.
I love you I love you I love you.
Is it enough, am I enough,
you are enough,
you are enough,
You are enough.
So here we are, years between today and the last time that we spoke. I’ve gone all this time beating myself up for still loving you despite how foolish it might be to love someone who has more easily earned rejection. But I realized that I still love you because you are still you, and I always loved you for you and not for what you could give to me. And I will always love you, because you will always have existed.
Let me hold you in my arms and
collect your tears on my shoulders,
girl, let me untangle your hair
and whisper I love you into your ears -
I love you, I love you,
I love you.
You’re not listening.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”
YOU’RE NOT LISTENING.
“I hurt you, I hurt you, I hurt you,”
I hurt myself,
you hurt yourself,
and someday we can trade the stories
behind each scar of ours;
but today
let me
love you
and I pray
you’ll let you
love you, too