Grow In Pains.

Don’t call this an art project. 
this is science, this is progress. 
and don’t pretend these are heartfelt words, we are 
children dressed as surgeons but disturbed by the sight of our scars. 
and now we carry scalpels to trace the scarring resting somewhere 
on the line between my house, your heart and into your home. 
where you lay sleeping like a ceiling fan in winter, 
gently turning as the wind reaches its fingers through the window 
just to hold you, like i held you. 
pressed like a rose between my fingers or like stones 
i keep in pockets meant to weigh me underwater. 

these scars will fade away but never disappear, my dear. 
we’ll raise our fists like lightning to rods to god and 
if he strikes us down, 
then he strikes us down. 
but first, let him hear us speak: 
we are like the legacy of thunderstorms we watched and swore in doorways, 
“we will never be the same again.” 

i can feel you healing and i hate it, 
(like a harpist without hands you only bang the strings 
you used to love to touch so much) 
to hear the dissonance drain violently and then dissolve 
like all the songs i sang but never once could make you smile. 
my god, i would kill to make you smile. 
and reach out to my hands, soft and frail, 
to make good on the love that you swear still exists, and still thrives 
though we’ve buried our bodies in blood (and old lies, 
like, “i’m fine” and “you look so much better than him” 
but don’t trust the surgeon with your heart, 
she’s drunk and sips from poison cups, and 
don’t you trust the scientist, 
he says “life-is-like-a-wineglass” as he spills his drink 
like secrets 
all across your dress and says: 

“my dear, i must confess, i never thought you ever knew what love was like for real. 

You still cross my mind from time lo lime. And I mostly smile. 
Still so set on finding out where we went wrong and why
So I retrace our every step with an unsure pen, 
trying to figure out what my head thinks, 
but my head just ain’t what it used to be. 
And then again, what’s the point anyway? 
I remember you ascending all the stairs up to the balcony 
to see if you could see me - hidden quietly away 
And I remember the skin of your fingers, 
The spot three quarters up I’d always touch when I was out of things to say.
You held my hand, but you were too afraid to speak and I could never understand. 
I remember when you leaned in quick to kiss me, and I swear, 
that not a single force on earth could stop the trembling of my hand,
And I remember how you smiled through the smoke 
in a crowded little coffeehouse and laughed at all my jokes. 
And I remember the way that you dressed and, 
how we wasted all the best of us in alcohol and sweat 
And I remember when I knew that you’d be leaving, how I barely kept up breathing 
and I bet if I had to do it all again, I’d feel the same pain, 
And I remember panicked circles in the terminal in tears. 
How I wept to god in fits. I’ve hated airports ever since. 
It must be true what people say, that only time can heal the pain. 
And every single day I feel it fade away, but - 
I still remember how the distance tricked us, 
and lead us helpless by the wrist into a pit to be devoured. 
I still remember how we held so strong to this, 
though we had never really settled on a way out.
I still remember the silence, and how we’d always find a way 
to turn and run to our mistakes. 
I still remember how it all came back together just to fall apart again. 
My dear, I hear your voice in mine.
I’ve been alone here, I’ve been afraid, my dear. 
I’ve been at home here. You’ve been away for years. I’ve been alone.
I breathed your name into the air; I etched your name into me. 
I felt my anger swelling; I swam into its sea. 
I held your name inside my heart, but it got buried in my fear. 
It tore the wiring of my brain; I did my best to keep it clear. 
So, dear, no matter how we part, I hold you sweetly in my head.
And if I do not miss a part of you, a part of me is dead. 
If I can’t love you as a lover, I will love you as a friend. 
And I will lay a bed before you; keep you safe until the end

-La dispute: Andria