No words

They’re not the really bad, too-scared-to-go-to-sleep sort any more, but nightmares are still nightmares, and only your heartbeat gives me something to cling onto. It was heartbeats that nearly drove me insane, overwhelming, none of them beating for me but beating all the same, which didn’t seem fair when all I had was a piece of ice-crusted lead lying heavy in my chest. It wasn’t your hair that day, but your heart, solid, reassuring, a rock for a drowning man, or woman in my case. Yes you keep me sane but only love could do that, a drumbeat isn’t enough if it doesn’t keep time for me. There are so many meanings that I don’t have the words for, so many emotions that can’t be spoken because no words exist for them but they’re there all the same, like the heartbeats so long ago. I’m trying to explain how much you mean without you running away, but I don’t think I’ll be able to, because all it boils down is that I need you, you, I need your smile, your warmth, your understanding your solidarity your all-encompassing embraces your ability to see beyond the masks your eyes that tell me I’m beautiful your laugh that’s so infectious even the black hole inside me has to laugh too

I need the pain of being away from you and the joy of being close to you again I need to be able to cry without the stupid questions that everyone else asks I need to hold you and look after you because you shouldn’t have to look after me all the time I need you to teach me how not to break when it all goes wrong because I’m not made of steel but glass with bubbles of pain trapped inside so I was rejected by everyone else and put up onto the ‘seconds’ shelf for all to look at and laugh while all I did was gather dust

I’m trying to tell you how much you mean to me, but more and more it’s looking like I need you for superficial reasons, which I don’t. The glass would fall off the shelf if you put it back there after cleaning the dust off, because the vibrations of hearts that don’t beat for me would echo in these bubbles of pain, and carry me off the edge

I’m trying to say I need you because I love you, but those words don’t say it well enough. If I could speak all the languages known to man and a few more besides, still I wouldn’t have the words to tell you just what you are to me.