These Words.

Hieroglyphics

I found my voice running through the wind tunnel of your throat

Singing songs about freedom,

I found my backbone lying down beside yours

Looking at the stars,

I found my courage cupped in your hand

Waiting for me to hold it;

The first time that I ever stood up to anyone 

Was the day they started screaming hate 

At the love in your eyes that they were too afraid to look into

You found me, 

Like the very last kid in a game of hide and seek 

That everyone forgets about and then leaves in the dark,

I had been hiding under the staircase of my spine for years 

Before you broke me out of the cage I didn’t realize my ribs made,

And after the first time I stood in the sunlight of your smile

I understood why moths flock to the light;

You can’t help but think that such beauty 

Might be able to burn the darkness out of you,

And you pray that if you lose your wings along the way

Then you might at least look like a shooting star on the way down

And I have started this poem a hundred times

But there are no words for the way

You curled yourself around me as we slept

And made me feel safe for the first time in years,

I can’t explain what it feels like to be in your arms

Because I’m pretty sure the angels are the only other ones

Who have experienced that level of divinity,

And I wish I could write in hieroglyphics

Because twenty six letters can’t contain or describe

The first time you said I love you 

Or the way I cried after and my tears tasted like salvation

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you changed me,

You found the broken puzzle pieces of my confidence and fixed me,

And every time you say beautiful

It erases another memory of the words ugly and worthless 

That he wove into a whip to carve into my body and crack my smile,

You make it easier to look in the mirror;

And when I ran away from the place I cant bear to call home

To go looking for my lost childhood in the park

And showed up at your door with tears still falling

And hands scraped raw from the chains handcuffing a swing set

You just held me and told me I could stay as long as I needed;

Within an hour I was laughing so hard it hurt

And thanking everything I’ve ever believed in

For the fact that you existed

So I may not know why people always leave

Or why hearts are so prone to breaking,

But I know I love you with everything I am and all I’ll ever be;

I love the way you throw your head back when you laugh,

I love the way my name sounds on your lips,

I love that you almost weren’t tall enough for the roller coaster,

I love how you can’t walk in a straight line,

I love the way you hold me every time you see me,

I love that you read almost as much as I do,

I love the way your family has already made me feel at home,

I love the way you have to eat your sweets by color,

I love waking up to your smile,

And I love you for staying when everyone else left me;

I love you for finding me when I lost myself.