As you and I sat there, eyes locked, you smiling knowingly at me and me grinning sheepishly back, all I could think about was the first time I met you. The first time I sat in front of you, the first time you caressed my face with your voice and said It will be okay, I'm here, and I won't let you go anywhere. That first day when I trembled like broken concrete, broken soundwaves vibrating over the edges of my teeth, barricading my truths and I broke into so many pieces just by looking at you, just by looking at you looking through me, through those walls of concrete I'd bled upon religiously, built up like altars and defended like shrines. All nothing, nothing, dust at your feet, motes floating across your lips as you asked the questions I never meant anybody to know that I needed to be asked, and your words danced up my throat, down over my ribcage, loosening me, freeing me. Easy, you'd said, steady, I'm here, breathe, hon, breathe. And I breathed. I struggled so goddamn hard against it, but longed so much harder for it that I breathed, nested in your arms and eased. That was last year, and now I sat in front of you so much easier, so much more free, smiling softly at you, your smile just as knowing, and so much more relieved, so much more proud.
I'm scared, I'd said. Your smile widened, and we both know I wouldn't have said that to you that first day, that I would have laughed it off shakily that first day if it had been torn from my lips on impulse. I want to use you as a soundboard, unless you feel there's something else I need to hear from you.
You looked so much lighter too. Satisfied, like looking at me is looking at the reason why you could die today and still feel fulfilled. I don't have an agenda today. What do you want to tell me?
It's like mountains colliding in my head, like priests stabbing scientists strapped heavily with bombs. I explain this to you, and quickly retract; That's not quite what I'm trying to say. It's more like slaying birds and bathing in their feathers, building snowshoes from their bones. I feel like I've spent a lifetime exactly where I've spent it with you. And now I've no idea what's next. I've spent all this time curing, crusading, and I never fathomed it would be as simple as just not fighting. Your smile broadens, encircling me, accepting me the way I accept myself. I skip and dance and light on fire and wash in the coolest of waters, I scare people and I enlighten them and I feel so goddamn comfortable doing it. But now I have no idea what's next.
You sit there with me, kissing me, loving me, lifting me, and together we stare down the unknown. Tall and terrifying and tasting of freedom bathed in blood, but you stare it down with me, and your pores bleed through with such electricity, so much eagerness to see it through with me, that I can't help but hold your hand and charge forth.
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