The Blood & The Bones

I used to look for you..

I searched for you in kind eyes, in calloused hands, in weight that pushed my body down into the bed. I saw your dark hair in crowds and your painted skin on men who were distant cousins of who you’d been. I smiled and I gravitated to them. Praying and preying. My honey so sweet and cunning. They never saw it coming. And as the hours or days or weeks would pass, I would find a way in. Knowing that the dance begins with my mouth saying all the things that they need to hear and that I wanted to say, I really did. But, to you, more than them. Yet, I knew that they’d have to do.

I used to look for you in all of them but you were not to be found. In whole or in part. Still, in desperation, I found a way.. I’d place my face into the part of their neck that cradled me best and I’d pretend that it was your flesh that touched mine.

And they would try to know me… to see me… but all I saw was you. And all the same, I absorbed their secrets and let my legs fall open to hold them in an embrace that held me too because I knew it was too late to back out. Their body covering mine. Wanting to cover the guilt like a hand over my mouth pulling them in.

Over and over, we would move like creatures craving comfort. And we would sway and he would fall and I would catch him. It was the least I could do… Giving them a piece of my peace for a few moments of pretend complete. It was not all a game. I always hoped each one would find a way to pull me in. But, this would mean, I’d have to let them. And fear was the gatekeeper of the path to me. Through too many battles, he lost the key. So, eventually, when I could not give them anymore I found a way to leave. Not without injury as I am full of little bullet holes in my soul in my quest to find something close to the man I knew… Inevitably always on my way with the wind whistling through the wounds, the saddest tune ears could hear if they were ever listening.

Yes, I used to look for you and I won’t lie, with what little is left of me, I still do.

the blood

& the bones