the language is leaving me.
i used to write - short stories, essays, novels, poetry. i used to be moved by emotion to pen love poems. when those stopped i thought for sure that they would be back one day.
as the conversations slowed, i thought that my written word would progress, my thoughts have somewhere to channel. it wasn't the case. all of my, it seemed, was receeding. pulling in closer to the center. i still said "i love you" sometimes. only sometimes. the situation had to be right. the mood altered on the receiving end. it had to seem offhand, no pressure, no desire.
by the time it was safe to say "i love you" again, i was suffering a drought at my fingertips. i type and type but i don't say much at all. i certainly don't have the gift of the prolific that i used to, my arial ten point doesn't bring the sighs and "where is the book" that it used to. but, not even noticing it, there's a difference to how your fingers dance when your lips are free to utter "i love you's".
today, as the puppy rolled over and i breathed "i love you", it wasn't until i questioned the source of the tears stinging at my eyes that i realized...no more "i love you's". the language is leaving me.
i am a woman who says "i love you" in ways unspoken. growing up in a home where love was rarely vocalized, rarely given physical gesture, i have strived in my grown life to show love to those who win it from me. if you are someone to whom my heart responds, chances are you listen with more than your ears. if i know you on a physical plane, i tell you with my eyes...my lips...my tongue...my nipples...my skin...my thighs...my pussy...my toes. i can tell you that i love you with eggs, herbs, lasagna, biscuits. i communicate love through service...you won't get your own water, turn on your own television, fluff your own pillow. my friends who are loved know that they'll be over-made-to-feel-at-home when in my presence...i'm always asking about their thirst, their hunger, if they're hot/cold/comfortable, if i can get them juice, a snack.
when i love someone enough to want them, i stay wanting them. i crave them, and when in their presence my reaching out for them is only my body's desire to show them my affection. it isn't a concious action. i don't think about reaching out to stroke an arm, to graze a leg, just like i don't think about washing my hands before cooking or how to ride a bike. i don't decide to deeply inhale when someone that i'm attracted to enters my space, i don't decide that i sleep better with someone with whom i feel safe is sleeping beside me. these are things that fondness, affection and love dictate to me.
today, as i rubbed the tummy of the dog who gives me unconditional love and shed surprising tears, i considered my life as is. i am currently without love. not solely in a relationship sense. but, i'm in a place of foundational uprooting. i have begun completely over in almost every sense of the words. everything in my life seemed to be red hot...burning up, but upon closer inspection, it was only smoke and ashes. and in those smoke and ashes were the ruins of my 'friendships' and most of my relationships. in some places, i was leaning too heavily on places where the foundation wasn't solidly built. in some places stood a mirage. in some places, the fault was my own - i had created something out of necessity that wasn't at all what i wanted it to be. in some situations, i pushed becaused i feared what i saw as an inevitable pulling away on their part.
the reasons, i guess, don't matter in the end. now as they say, it is what it is. and i feel more alone than i have ever been. i know that i have typed that before. probably i have typed that on these very pages before. but now i feel it more truly than ever. there are no more i love you's in my life right now. i don't say it. i don't have someone eager to be in my space, in my smell, in my arms. i don't know with certainty that if i can't sleep (like tonight), that if i get sick after eating (like now, again), that if i feel ill at ease (again), that if it would be so much easier with someone who makes me more at ease beside me, that that someone will come. i know that being in poor health doesn't mean that i deserve it more. i know that just because my body is suffering what it is doesn't mean that people should be more gentle, more tolerant, with me. but sometimes i feel like it isn't fair.
i know that life isn't fair, that i don't deserve fairness or ease or any other thing...i don't deserve anything. but i wish that it could be easier. i wish that my health could catch a break, that my body could catch a break. i wish that there could be a constant for me...that there was someone here to say i love you to, to cook for when i'm stressed, to feel safe to reach out and touch when i'm hurting and in that place of needing to not think about it. i just wish that i could have some ease for a minute.
my body feels stiff now...as if it is forgetting the language which it used to speak with such ease.
