i love like flowers and fire…
i don’t know any other way. soft and vulnerable,
and wild and burning… with my heart broken. wide. open.
and even though he came in like wildfire, he was just. broken.
and hardened. and filled with an ugliness raging inside of him
and he thought that if he raged hard enough against me
that he could rage an ugliness out from inside of me too.
then he could say, “see, it’s you.” that he could be so hard to
love that he could make me feel hard to love too. but i just
softly left the room. a graceful exit. and i wrote all my
feelings down to shed his hardened residue. and to remind
myself of all the ways that there are such beautiful
and tender things in me… always.

instead of becoming rage too, i said to my heart..
exit gracefully. heal and grow.
don’t look back.

– butterflies rising