***
his sadness is the kind that clings, fills oceans, and causes floods in your desire to help make him whole.
i want to infuse him with love. i want to be the heat that recedes the depth of his need. i’m not the first; perhaps the number of people who have felt the same could fill a small country. when he allows it, his charm hides his infinite voids, and he makes you laugh in places that feel like they were created by him. he awakens dead tissue in your love organ.
the chambers of my heart swell for him. i wrap my body around him and try to immerse love into his pores, try to let touch be a filter for my feelings.
he is the master of his own destiny though. i cannot drift to the dreamland he goes to with tall five-eyed monsters who tell him he’s not good enough so many times that he starts to foam at the mouth and shake.
i place cold wash cloths against his temple when he’s stilled. i press my lips against his and breathe warm, giant gulps of life into the depths of his lungs. you will never drown me like the others, i whisper when his breathing still hasn’t become regular. let it out.
he hides his face in my chest and softly cries the monsters out from his soul. i love you, he says, the vibration of his words stroking the middle of my chest. there’s a brief moment before he falls back to sleep where i see a sliver of darkness, a portion of his ocean of sadness, dissipate. it closes the flood gates another inch; it keeps me swimming.
–lissa
