A Letter For The Ones Who Stay.
There are different shades for every kind of love. I’ve seen a few — some crimson and some a taut rouge. Some pristine and pink, some too dusty and dull.
The thing is, you can’t always tell which one will last and which one will only mark your cheekbones until you wash your face, scrubbing lightly and watching the red drain from the sink.
But I tend to give myself to all of them, never worrying about dulling my own hue. I don’t think about my cheeks, usually stained bright red. Or how they will soon turn a lighter beige, from letting so many people in. I don’t think about the tiny hints of pink that rest under my eyes, or how they might start to fade soon.
I don’t think about how every person chips a little color away.
The thing is, I don’t know how to hold back. I might’ve missed that class. I might’ve skipped that grade altogether.
I never learned about moving up the ladder of love in any way other than flinging your whole self up to the top, hoping your toes scrape the edges and you’re able to pull yourself up.
So lately I’ve been looking for my kindred spirits. For the ones like me, who don’t hold back.
The ones who, like me, love people with their whole body. Fling themselves at everyone, effortlessly.
And it’s made me start thinking a lot about the word stay and what it means to me. I’ve been sloshing it around in my mouth, savoring its syllables, biting down on the hard vowel. For some, I know it’s an acquired taste, this word. It makes some people a little uncomfortable and it doesn’t sound nearly as pleasant as flee or go.
But this, this is for those of us who stay. Tirelessly, endlessly. To the ones who don’t flinch. The ones who stand still.
The ones who ask about your day and want the meat, the marrow and everything in between. These are the people I want.
The ones who know that people are not sustenance. But still crave them, fully.
The ones who know they are delectable. Who know they don’t need to be gorged upon so quickly, but still let people do so. The ones who do not break themselves into pieces, set themselves out as snacks. Instead, they serve themselves as a heavy, one-course meal. Devoured entirely in one sitting, leaving people entirely too full.
The ones who always look like a fine mess — the aftermath of a candlestick explosion upon their skin. The ones who make us feel nothing but soft, billowy flames rising through our pores. Their scars are incandescent; their skin, luminescent.
The ones whose bruises seem to stay the same colors indefinitely. Not painful, but tender and full of melancholy memories. The patterns in the green and purple hues are reminiscent of their lover’s eyes, their heavy nighttime glow.
The ones who let people in so fully, they can never get a good perspective.The ones who see everyone up close, all of their absurdities magnified and glorified.
This is for you. I know how much you give, and hope to just collide into someone else. Sparking and bursting along the way. And I know how much it stings, when you can’t seem to sync up with another soul.
I have a couple of apologies for you. They came to me some nights ago, stuck to my eyelids in a heavy dream cycle and repeated themselves until dawn. I woke up and found them typed out cleanly across my floorboards, streaked with the morning sun. So I’ve transcribed them here for you, and I hope they find you well:
* I’m sorry that you aren’t constantly being savored. Slowly, readily, hungrily. I’m sorry that someone isn’t gulping down your love, taking heavy doses to dope them up, to mystify them.
* I’m sorry that you cried yourself to sleep that one night, thinking that you had no one. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry you have gone days believing that no one loved you, days where you felt so insignificantly small. I’m sorry for how you ached when the wind of your lover’s words slapped your face, bruised your lips.
* I’m sorry that someone, somewhere, felt it necessary to slay you with their words. I’m sorry that sometimes you want to give up on people altogether. I’m sorry that you aren’t constantly caressed in a way that makes you both warm and fresh, delighted and slightly shaken up.
* I’m sorry you aren’t looked at the way you deserved to be looked at. Like the light in your eyes is turned up at just the right interval. Bright enough to keep a gaze, and not, for a single second, drop it to the floor.
* I’m sorry no one has asked for the character, the cartilage of your bones. I’m sorry that no one has asked for all the heavy, life-soaked marrow of your body to pulse in sync with their own.
* I’m sorry that someone tried to airbrush the bruises that formed as the wind slapped against your knees on that day you decided to just give up and fall. I’m sorry no one wanted to see the indentations, to feel the curvatures of your bones as they tried to realign themselves.
* I’m sorry that no one has asked you what scents remind you of home, or how you felt the first time you fell in love. Or what made you laugh that first time after your heart was ripped out. I’m sorry that no one has asked to hear your whispers. The ones you bellow from the depth, barely audible.
* I’m sorry nobody has rearranged the moving parts of their heart to find the perfect place for you.
Will you do me a favor, and shake things up yourself? Move the aortic valves, dismantle the veins. Just for a second, make sure if all fits.
Every time you feel your heart burst, I want you to spill it all out over the table. See it scattered, see it all stretched out. Then put it all back. Make more room. Because there is always, always more room in there.Your chest cavity expands if you let it, if you want it to.
And I don’t know about you, but I will always want it to.
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