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March 21, 2016

How I want to Feel. {Poem}

window, woman, alone

I didn’t want to feel like this,

First I didn’t want to fall in love.

I didn’t want to feel like if you left I would ache—

and then aching, I didn’t want to remember loving you.

But I did. So much so.

Memories of loving so intense

they course electrically up my spine,

lingering at the back of my neck

where your fingers used to rest.

Or are they at my hips?

I still feel them there,

can feel my own fingers trace toward your wrist

to catch yours, and together, it seemed,

pull me in.

I hear your words

as if you are next to me still,

whispering truths and wondering at feels.

I do not want to feel–

still exhaustingly vulnerable–

how I do when I realize you are not:

alone, missing.

Shame, fear—

those were not mine to feel.

Torn in two

left to wonder at every answer,

every exquisite detail

revealed for love…

I feel everything,

when I want to feel nothing.

Not attached, not wanting.

Not make-believing

that the sweetest of memories

mean anything about the future,

I want only my present

where I feel joy, gratitude.

Where the breath of your memory

dances with my spirit

for how alive I am for having let you love me

and feeling,

with no need for return

(but oh, hope)

that, even now

I still love you.

 

Author: Tiffany Anderson

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Pixabay

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Tiffany Anderson