This Heaviest of Freedoms

I. Walkabout

I removed the gold chain from around my neck. The one that holds
an inscribed half-heart and a ring.

How many times have I traced the jagged edge of that divided charm?

I seem to have swallowed all the bitter words
I never got a chance to throw at you.

I have them sitting in my stomach, a dense mass of letters
flavored with an angry tone.

I hear every sound from the distance of the top of a high dive.
But I've already plunged, so it must be the water that clogs my ears.

I smile and make dinner, I laugh and play the part.

I am either the world's best actress, the world's coldest lover, or the world's biggest fool.

Then again, maybe it's the way I'm screaming inside, so loudly,
that makes everything echo from far away.

I know I'm crazy.

I may call you again. I may love you again.

It was your turn to chase me. (The way it always will be.) Maybe I finally tired you out. Maybe I finally drove you away.

And to think, I was holding back.

I don't feel any of that lightness I thought I would feel, bubbling up inside me, lifting my burden.

I was probably wrong.

I am definitely cruel.

I am too strong for my own good.

I think you got off easy. I think you're the lucky one.
I think I let fear call the shots. (I thought too much.)

I twisted the passages from my heart to my mind one too many times.
They are the thinnest of straws leaking precious emotion.

I think this may be as happy as I get.

Why am I so weighed down by this heaviest of freedoms?

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II. Boomerang

You made sure your mother called
to tell me about the emergency.

The medium is in the hospital. The one who talks to ghosts,
who said I was beautiful outside and in.

(You see why I was skeptical?)

I did the unthinkable - ran away. But you didn't even know
I had left you.

I am torn between frustration and relief.

It's the little things that always pull you back, the
gossamer-thin spider webs that we have erected between us.

I hate the distance, those glorious mountains and the oceans laced with salt.

I hate the unfairness inherent in the distribution of resources.

More than anything, I hate my fickle, cold-blooded heart.

The same one that catches in my throat when I reach for my necklace
and find only unbroken skin.

Thin strands of gold lie in a resentful pile on my dresser.
We never did write our names on the back of that charm.

I called you. Dodged your lazy bullet questions.

I gave you an in.

I both hope and dread you will take it.

I could never sell my soul for a kiss, but I'd buy yours.

Keep it in a vial around my neck.

Wear it as a shawl, a blanket, to save myself from the frost.
(How do you stay so warm?)

Run it up a flagpole, sew it into my pocket, prick it, cure it, love it, destroy it.

Melt it and mold it into a key for these fetters.

Open me up again.
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~~~~~AEW~~~~~
Words are kisses are swords, striking from within... <-- More Poetry