(de) Construction.

"a body" is formed out of shared intimacy. When it lasts, it becomes a child. but before that, we build a body of love with each other- sometimes it lasts. Sometimes it falls apart.

We built a body with our love. 
used words to see,
and used touch 
to calm the restlessness
and torrential rain of our
nervous assumptions.

Our frame was built like bones,
piece by piece, our movements forming what we would be.
together we molded
memories with milestones- 
our foundation 

and the sound of our voices, 
our conversations,
guided the very melody of our shared, 
beating heart.  

It’s kind of funny, now that I recall.

We grew up carefully padded 
but equally clumsy.
Running into the “little things” we thought we forgot,
things we thought we outgrew,
the very walls built out of scarred, scabbed skin,
impatiently covering up wounds we didn’t know how to close.

all the while, we made new ones, 
but healed them with affection,
and bandaged the ones we thought could wait,
we thought- is the key word. 

Before we knew it, we were all bandages and band-aids,
loose in very dangerous places.

our voices changed. 
the beat slowed
unsure
like the silence before a tragedy and your consciousness come to an understanding 
the silence until you find a way to articulate it

“sorry” 

a word we used to use to mend,
found a new meaning in breaking

“sorry” was like an infection,
finally making itself felt
underneath all the bandages we thought could wait. 

It was only a matter of time.

The body broke down, I guess. 
the pieces came loose. The conversations 
no longer caught themselves the way they used to,
they echoed in newfound emptiness,

the heart beat now missing a partner,
had to learn to beat for itself again.

edited, September 8 2017. 1148. 

Author's Note

very rough draft. I'd written it in 2016 and realized it had potential after reading it again this morning. the imagery shifts because i'm still sorting things out though. I think they work well in segregated paragraphs but altogether I understand it looks a little confusing and messy. Hopefully editing later on will help.