Royal Heart

You will never be let down by anyone

more than you will be let down

by the one you love most in the world

it’s how gravity works

it’s why they call it “falling”

it’s why the truth is harder to tell

every year

you have more to lose

but you can choose to bury your past

in the garden

beside the tulips

water it

until it’s so alive

it lets go

and you belong to yourself

again

When you belong to yourself again

Remember forgiveness

is not a tidy grave

It is a ready loyal knight kneeling before your royal heart

Call in your royal heart

Tell it bravery cannot be measured by a lack of fear

It takes guts to tremble

It takes so much tremble to love

Every first date is a fucking earth quake

Sweetheart, on our first date

I showed off all my therapy

I flaunted the couch

Where I finally sweat out my history

Pulled out the photo album from the last time I wore a lie to the school dance

I smiled and said “that was never my style

Look how fixed I am

Look how there’s no more drywall on my fist

Look at the stilts I’ve carved for my short temper

Look how my wrist is not something I have to hide” I said

Well I was hiding it

The telephone pole still down from the storm

By our third date I had fixed the line

I said listen,

I have a hard time

I mean I cry as often as most people pee and I don’t shut the door behind me

I’ll be up in your face screaming “SEATTLE IS TOO RAINY SEATTLE IS TOO RAINY

I’M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO LIVE HERE.”

I sobbed on our fourth date

Advertisement

Privacy Settings

I can’t live here

In my body, I mean

I can’t live in my body all the time it feels too much

So if I ever feel far away know I am not gone

I am just underneath my grief

Adjusting the dial on my radio face so I can take this life with all

of it’s love and all of it’s loss

See I already know that you are the place where I am finally going to

sing without any static meaning

I’m never gonna wait

that extra twenty minutes

to text you back,

and I’m never gonna play

hard to get

when I know your life

has been hard enough already.

When we all know everyone’s life

has been hard enough already

it’s hard to watch

the game we make of love,

like everyone’s playing checkers

with their scars,

saying checkmate

whenever they get out

without a broken heart.

Just to be clear

I don’t want to get out

without a broken heart.

I intend to leave this life

so shattered

there’s gonna have to be

a thousand separate heavens

for all of my flying parts

And none of those parts are going to be wearing the romance from the

overpriced vintage rack

That is to say I am not going to get a single speed bike if I can’t

make it up the hill

I know exactly how many gears I’m going to need to love you well

And none of them look hip at the hot coffee shop

They all have God saying “good job you’re finally not full of bullshit”

You finally met someone who’s going to flatten your knee caps into

skipping stones

Advertisement

Privacy Settings

Baby, throw me

Throw me as far as I can go

I don’t want to leave this life without ever having come home

And I want to come home to you

I can figure out the rain.

When you belong to yourself again: four poems by Andrea Gibson