I Am Not Warm, I Am the Bottom of the Ocean

If I come to you and we talk, there will be a time when we admit to each other in a room for the first time since then. We don't know if we should hug each other, because we don't know how to get together in a room, not just touch each other a little, and I don't want to live. So I can't come.

If we sit across a table, that's me with a cup of coffee, so I have a problem with my hand. Listen to all the ways you can't, aren't ready, can't, and can't. I only hear a series of reasons to explain why I'm not enough, why I'm not good enough for you to try, and I never know you're here. What do you want to tell me?

I'll never know what you're talking about because I've learned from my bones what your rhythm has told me for nine months. Nine months are long. It's enough time to create and make a complete human, or grow 4.5 inches of hair, or watch butterflies make and appear in cocoons 25 times. It's long enough to slip my own heart fragments into my pocket like a thief and escape from you. If I come, I will only hear you tell me over and over how hard I am to love, and you have said enough time to go deep into my heart and make me believe it completely. It lives in my sternum.

I only know your rhythm; no more words, not for you. You can't tell me you love me, you admire me, I have been very precious to you, I think you will come back again and again, but even animals will instinctively climb to warm and safe places to sleep.

But I'm not warm. I am made up of water, ghosts, drowning water and salt. If you want to say anything to me at this point, you must bring me the sacrifices of the soul of the sailor who has disappeared at sea, the pearls that have fallen off the oyster and the guts of the whale that have engulfed me. You have to put these things on the altar because there must be blood there. There must be old songs, shark teeth and dancing, and you must find a way to show me you, you can't, because you're not a fighter. You take what is handed over to you without peeling off the skin of Sebago, decoding the rules, renovating the walls and crossing the moat. You take what is easy and leave it at your door. I will never stay at your door again. I am not a kitten.

I am not warm, I am the bottom of the sea. You can't tell me you love me, because you have to swim there to do it, you have to give me ancient magic, you have to apologize to my ancestors. You can't tell me you love me because you don't know what that means. You can't tell me you love me because you can't because I never saw you love anyone enough to decide to be kind. You can't tell me you love me, because you tell me again and again, but it still doesn't make you love me.

I'm not warm, I'm hot, I'm the center of the volcano, I'm enough to carve my home on the rocks. I'm not warm, I'm not sleeping for you. I'm not your safety net after you limped back from your last failure. I'm not your blanket. I'm not your mother. I am a thousand poems, kisses and laughter of earthquakes, I am the moon, I am a smooth whiskey, I am a burnt page, I am thick, whipped honey.

If I come now, you just need to tell me these words, many of which will be useless and insipid, because all you have is words, and I am a writer; I am enough for both of us. So I'll do it for you. I'll read the list of reasons why I'm so hard to love. I'll remind myself coldly that you never promised me a rose garden. I should know better. I will do this until it becomes an ode, and one day I will wake up and forget why I want you when I deserve fire and you are not Prometheus.

Old ghosts don't wait for you. They don't lock the door. They don't leave suggestion boxes in your office. They don't call you. You have to get their attention. That's why there are drums and dances. In the past, in order for God to listen, you had to sacrifice your best goats, howl, and beg. You have to fool them into listening to you. You must build an altar and lure them with blood, teeth, bones, hymns, enemy heads and all the songs. You have to go to them in the forest center, you have to convince them not to swallow you, you have to let them listen to your request. A Prayer without response is a prayer that you have not bled. Prayer is just a word until you want to see this creature.

I am a creature. I bring all the drums and dances to my heart. I am not alone. I am a storm.

No more words from you. I can't hear you. I'm magic. I'm a magnet. If you can't let me hear you, you have nothing I want.