Homes of the selfish

I have wrapped my own arms around my chest several times and called it healing. I have dove headfirst into my very being only to pull out what looks like sadness and acts like pain. There is a home here inside me, it swallows me whole and provides comfort where there is none to be found. I drown in this complexity, the feeliing of being both whole and broken. I found a home inside me where you found nothing but an empty version of what I once could have been. I am all that I was and all I could ever be and I dont know if that will ever be enough. I drown within myself knowing that the only person I truly need to impress is me. The only arms that will protect me now dangle at my sides, connected to my body. I am much my own before anyone elses and I dont know if that makes me selfish or wise.I am my own safe haven the only place I have ever felt both comfort and heartache is within these internal walls. I can reside here, inside myself drowning in my complex emotions. While you wonder if I will ever change I will be inside myself fighting to stay the same protecting myself from the moments that could be. All i ever wanted to be was myself,naked in my truth standing tall while you wanted to watch me wither and crumble. I often wonder which move makes one of us the selfish one. I will rot inside this body before i ever let you make me less of a home to my own soul. -M.D.L

I love you.

I choke on my words, they are stuck where my uvula meets the back of my throat, being suffocated slowly. I gag wanting to release every word I could use to describe how I feel about you. They won’t come out and I’m stuck trying to make them appear on this paper like a magician at a street fair. I start with I love you but it doesn’t seem enough. I could throw up sonnets, fourteen lines confessing how I love you will never be enough but instead I choke on every syllable, every rhyme. I have so much to say to you but art can’t be rushed and I feel my throat collapsing in on itself like an accordion when I’m around you. I love you is too simple. You deserve the longest poem I have ever written, a spoken word night dedicated to the way you have trapped my heart inside your own rib cage. I love you won’t escape my lips because it doesn’t fit with how the way you look at me makes me feel. I love you drowns in my saliva and is swallowed whole because it will never amount to the way my soul dances with yours. I love you is suffocated until I can muster up the words to describe how my life is better with you in it. I love you is too simple. I will choke until words more meaningful bleed through this paper because I love you just simply isn’t enough. Our love is art and art can’t be rushed with words like I love you.