I miss you and want you to come back to me. I need you, emboldened black against white. It is wild how much I worship you. But wilder still, how afraid of you I’ve become. For too long I’ve been stuck in my head; swishing and swirling in a mess of cloudy pontification. I do at times feel you close and sense your desire to spell out all my madness so I can own it. But the closer you get to becoming, the more I push you away. I can tell when you’re perched patiently at the tip of my tongue or tickling the tips of my fingers and then I ache for the courage to channel you onto paper, to make you come to life. To make you real, permanent.
Once upon a time, we were a team. You, constantly pushing me with all your clarity, and boldness and honesty. You did cause me pain, a lot and often. But you made me grin mischievously, when I re-read you – even laugh out loud at times. Oh, beloved words, the profundity of what we shared together, in any format, in any font.
I suppose I lost my confidence the moment I lost my authenticity. It was all downhill from there and now I am shy around you. I feel I’ve let you down.
Perhaps you are also afraid of me. Afraid of what might emerge from the page. I know you want to maintain your integrity and I want this for you too. I want to be us again, to rebuild trust between us.
How I long for you to wake me in the middle of the night the way you used to. How easy it was then, when you ravaged me out of my slumber in the middle of the night. The love we would make, drenched in ink, paper spread like a warm quilt all over my desk. My desk. Our sacred space; how we found ourselves locked in a gaze of pure love, no matter how brief our encounter.
But that was then. Please, I need to see you again. I need to read you over and over. I need to quench my thirst with metaphor. For us to tease each other in rhyme. I feel ravenous. Come back to me. Articulate me. Let’s start again.
Love, Niki
Girlwithoutawatch 