You know that trust game? The one where you close your eyes and let yourself fall backwards and someone standing behind you catches you?
... How many of you are like me, and could never bring yourself to actually let yourself fall? I used to think I was the only one who couldn't do it, but I just found out I'm not. How many others are there?
if it looks like I'm being reckless and blind to the dangers, you're only half right.
if it looks like I'm completely anything -- giddy, in love, sad, angry, whatever -- you're missing something.
if you think I'm too anything to turn around, to stop, to back out? -- you're wrong.
there's the little voice I can't shake, right up to the very last second -- and I will never ever be able to honestly plead being "past the point of no return." Because I can always put my foot back and stop myself. I can always stand up and walk out and walk away, even when you think I'm too committed to even think about setting foot out the door. On the one hand, you'll never be able to be truly sure of me. On the other, every minute I spend with you? I'm there because on some level I want to be.
I can't offer soft blind adoration. I will probably never be able to do more than keep silence on my doubts, my appraisals, my misgivings, while I make the very conscious decision to set them aside in favour of the moment I'm in and the person I'm sharing it with. You will never truly be my hero, my everything, and I will never be completely helpless without you. You will never be completely necessary in my life, and when you catch me, my gratitude will be mingled with surprise and tempered with the knowledge that had you not, I would have found some other way. I will never expect to be caught.
On the other hand, if you remember that I do not completely need you, then you know that I didn't pick you -- and, make no mistake, I did pick you -- to save me. I chose you because I wanted you beside me. To be a companion, not some fairy-tale knight or fairy godmother. If you know that I am never not conscious of alternatives, then you know that every second I'm with you, I choose you. Again and again and again, I'm making the decision to be with you, to stay by you. I will not forget the times you disappoint me. My hurts don't get washed out of existence the first time you take me to bed, or the first time you hand me a gift, or offer a smile, and if you think I'm distracted from them, that's only because I have and always will have thoughts you're not privy to.
The first anger doesn't wash away the memory of the good, either. In the middle of my fury, I will remember that you have been good to me, that I have cared for you, that the reasons I had for choosing you haven't gone away.
I am not soft and gentle and delicate. Compared to most of the women and girls I know, I'm a cast-iron bitch. I save the poetry for abstracts and people in my past, and I have real trouble discussing the present at all, let alone bathing it in soft words and fancies. I will write poems for you only when you are gone from my life.. or I believe you are. When you are with me, you get to be with me, and I will spend the time with you intensely, and you will never be a default decision. That's the blessing and the curse of a woman with a stainless steel spine. And I wouldn't trade places with any of those wide-eyed porcelain dolls for a single second.
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