Home First Breathes Within Ourselves

I didn’t just tiptoe gracefully into love with you; I spiraled into the delirious clashing of two furious tidal waves with untrusting eyes wide open - eager to create shared magic on the blank canvas of us. Intentionally and with the careless exhaustion of a gun-shy heart. “Just one foot in front of the other,” I whispered to my weary soul. It’s what we bend to unquestionably in the midst of unnerving chaos.

Our contrasting worlds collided desperately during a time when I needed to share your oxygen the most. We plummeted from a reticent galaxy, awkward and greedy and drenched in wishful thinking. We were the detonation of stars and sparks of intoxicating lust and the religion of reckless love all in one heaving and hopeful breath.

The first time we breathed in the same air and shed the outermost layers of our deepest vulnerabilities - you echoed a bittersweet familiarity. Our hands wandered without destination, easing over every canyon and bathing in each ocean like our souls were designed to hold one another in this intimate space - all while blissfully avoiding how our future hung cautiously in the balance of an impending cataclysm. We were the beautiful disaster of a dark destiny.

You felt like home.

But to my heart’s demise, you cannot make homes within people. Home resides between the empty spaces of your rib cage, making messy beds and sneaking midnight embraces with the timid strength of your lungs. The bitter pang of time ceasing the ache in our bellies and sewing together the unraveling bits of our tattered imaginations.

And though I lost the will to love you down to your feeble bones, I survived by the will to love myself. That brave girl. The one who breathes fire while riding on the wings of dragons and wields words soaked in infinite wisdom. Who reverberates the voice of her savage mother and has the courage to bring it to life with thunder and rage and reckless abandon. The one who believes she is worthy of each fearless rise and fall of her chest.

I rolled over slowly, existing perpetually between the calming scent of vanilla chamomile and the blessed embrace of white linen sheets. Smile lines formed in delicate crinkles on the outskirts of my wild amber eyes as I witnessed the dance of golden sunlight within each tired corner of the room. Warmth. Joy. Grace. Hazy dreams that eased sweetly into tangible realities and raspy voices that whisper gentle “I love you’s” smoother than the richest honey.

I propped myself up on my arm, auburn curls softly framing my elbow, and gently traced the hills and curves from the base of my hip to the top of my freckled thigh; a devastating battleground of slain dragons and weary demons. And though war wages heavily, echoing tirelessly throughout the vacant dips and bends of my deepest self; I still bow graciously to the belief that unyielding love exhales enough courage to eventually conquer them all.

The belief that home does not reside within the four walls of another, but that those passionate people aide us cautiously in finally finding the home that first breathes within ourselves.