I Love You, I Hate You, I Want You, I Need You, I Forgive You.
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I love you I hate you
You used to do this thing where you would walk into a room and pause. Dramatically, like a Shakespearean hero waiting for his lines. Your arms would open slightly wide, but low, and you would turn your right shoulder in just a little bit towards your chest, narrowing your profile.
This was my cue to fit myself into your space and put my brow right into the groove of your throat. In this space I would sigh and let you hold me.
This was how you hugged, and it was never a spontaneous hug, it was never a hug of pure joy to see me or share me, but rather that a hug needed to be executed and I was the one that needed to be hugged.
Your hold was always light and softly removed, as if I was given the opportunity to drink from this rare fountain and I had better take it now. I had better absorb the love now, while the tap was on, because I had learned.
I had learned that the tap didn’t run hot and cold, but rather on and off. And despite the cruelty of the knowing, I took that hug whenever I could because it was the hug you would give, and I hated it. And I loved it, because I loved you.
It didn’t matter that I like hugs that are wild and free and consuming. I like hugs that swallow you and make you laugh and rock back and forth and make you feel like the world is out there and we are in here.
I did it anyway because I loved it and I hated it the way a starving man loves overcooked beets.
I love you I hate you I want you please stay far far away forever
And then there were those times when I would run my fingernails through your hair, from crown to nape, scraping it back from your face over and over again. You would bow in like a cat and your eyes would purr, and god, for that moment you loved me and I knew it.
I absolutely knew it, and I could press my nose into your beard and smell the fire smoke that told me you would be happy. The adoration pleased you and I could rest for just one broken moment in the place where I believed that you loved me and it was okay that I loved you.
I always knew the words would come back that proved you actually hated me and that I was small and stupid and wrong to adore you with all my heart.
And then I hated myself for knowing and loving and wishing that those smoke-filled moments could be a living landscape that we might one day move into forever.
Because surely, surely if I loved you enough, I could make them real forever and we could be the faerie king and queen that loved that rich and true. I would beg the goddess to make more time just like that so I could feel you in my soul for as long as you would let me.
I hate you I love you I need you please just disappear
All that time I burned on the stake. I bled from a thousand knife wounds. I broke beneath the blow of your hammer. I loved and I loved and I loved… and then I hated and I hated and I hated, and the two lived happily side by side in my heart.
Oh, how grateful I am for that hate — even knowing that it was just my love burning darkly. You are heroin and shadows and Sith. If I did not hate you, I would still have my chin on your throat and my nose in your beard and I would whither until the day your darkness killed me.
Thank you, hate, for giving me the speed to run. Thank you, hate, for giving me the strength to put my love aside and survive. If it were not for you, my love would swallow me alive and I might spend my days in longing, wishing for a time and space where I could try one more time to turn lead into gold.
So I relish my hate and let it burn, side by side, next to the love so fate soaked and dangerous.
I love you I hate you I forgive you
Today I spend my love on different things. The sweet smile of a child. The happy purr of a well-stroked cat. The laugh of a loyal friend.
And I wait for the day when I no longer hate you.
*****
{Love-worn}
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