Careful.
I am careful, as I write these words.
Careful not to say too much, or tip my hand.
My heart urges me forward; my brain and my lungs and my bones may have forgotten how to fall in love, but the heart is a muscle, and muscles have memory.
Telling her that she feels like the sun on my skin after a long bitter winter would come all too natural to my heart. But I know this is a delicate dance, and foundations take time. There are boundaries to learn. There is trust to build and history to overcome. And though I wish it were not so, there is an undeniable terror building in my chest.
It yanks at the leash, and even in this private place that no one will see, I feel myself recoil.
And so I obey that dread, like a dog trained at the end of a lash. Fighting the urge to write that she’s lifted something off of me. That my legs feel less heavy; my vision less clouded.
My fear has become an instinct. It reminds me of the weight of love. It reminds me of its teeth, and the strength of its jaws.
You see, a man can only dwell in apathy for so long before it finds its way into his pores. It soaks in slowly until it becomes impossible to tell where it ends, and he begins. And without even knowing it’s happening, he finds himself slipping into the safety of numbness. The final sacrifice of a broken heart; to give up feeling anything at all.
But she is pins and needles, waking up a sleeping limb that I had almost forgotten ever existed. She’s a hand placed ever so gently on my cheek as we fall asleep, a hushed whisper of my name inches from my ear, a deep kiss without holding one eye open. She is a pair of blue eyes gazing intently over the edge of a glass, an arm I find wrapped around me while I dream, and a subtle shift in weight to draw our bodies ever closer.
And though I can feel the slumbering parts of my heart waking once more, I know I must be patient. I must be present.
So I am careful, as I write these words.
Careful not to say too much, or tip my hand.