I didn’t know it could hurt back then,
we were drunk on bliss and sweet wine,
glowing in ways the young always do,
a raw light through us that can be
almost too dangerous to touch.
It was all instinct and velocity,
we’d come to know it as a sacred rush,
as wanting more than one can really give,
so we’d reach below and find the kind
of fire that made us feel as if we belonged.
It was never so wrong to want
to be part of something
beyond our own loneliness.
And what I’d remember most wouldn’t be
the way your nails broke vulnerable flesh
or how those marks were temporary
and beautifully inscrutable sentences
that burned as living hieroglyphics
no one else could ever understand,
it would be the way my name was whispered.
I never knew then that such a fleeting sound
could make me realize how alone I was
before that lone incantation sealed
everything of that night forever between us.
I didn’t know it could hurt back then.
It was all instinct and animal motion,
to pierce sacred and vulnerable flesh
and not knowing that to be taken inside
was what you really wanted to give,
that would hurt the most of all,
to give so much and think you didn’t belong
when I already knew that part of me loved you.
For your whisper to claim me with such certainty
but to then say to not touch you after,
it was never so wrong to need you even more
and no divide since then has been greater.
And what I’d remember most wouldn’t be the urgency
in how these unlearned bodies clasped together,
the shelter of my weight upon you,
a blissful haven that would go on
to be unfairly compared to all others.
It wouldn’t be the stillness and knowing that was
the first time that something fled
from me to forever be a part of you,
not taken or surrendered but given.
It was the way your eyes pleaded for me
to stay nestled between parted thighs because
we exchanged what could never be altered.
It was seeing the pale curve of your back
and never knowing what made you turn away,
it was as if a beautiful world enveloped,
enfolded me in overwhelming warmth
but suddenly denied me its gravity,
words weren’t used after that,
not for rage or mutual tenderness,
the silence implied new boundaries.
That would follow and hurt the most,
to move on and never know if it was
because of your pain or my own,
to never truly belong again.
We didn’t know it would hurt back then.
