Elegy to All You've Done

writingsforwinter:

You have found love, and wore it like a second skin, like a sheet of rain

that is directionless but always returns south, to the place from which it came.

You have weathered your callouses like a storm full of lightning,

have held hands with another and felt theirs,

have understood that each one was a continent and not a bruised tectonic plate.

You have possessed what your grandfather called “love dyslexia,” or reading the signs

of someone else’s affection wrong,

but you will soon learn how to decipher them correctly.

You have known someone else so deeply

you were able to reach their core- not like the core of an apple,

but rather like the core of the earth itself.

You have wanted to know them deeper, and wondered if you even could.

You have, at one point in your life, truly believed the moon

was as close as it appears,

and could be reached by a journey of only a few miles up.

You have slept the way rivers sleep: quietly and without light.

You have wished for “something better than this,”

and at times it was delivered to you,

other times not.

You have wanted to die,

but were so glad

when you finally changed your mind.