I didn't know

I didn't know, how could I have known

That happenings would this way happen

How could I have known you would change?

Or I? My foundation shifted.

I didn't know, how could I have known

That you would weep this way

Silently in the night in your pillow

Hurting and alone, I feel it, I know.

I didn't know when I once watched you,

Following, wondering, wishing for you

I watched you from afar

I didn't know the kind of heart

Or the kind of mind you had inside you.

I didn't know how easy you could break

How easy I could break

I didn't know how your past haunted you
And cut you in the deepest way.

I didn't know, how could I know?

I didn't know that you would lash out

And hurt my deep, inner, opened self

In every way but bruising.

I didn't know that we'd travel through the pain of that

Into forgiveness because of our love.

They didn't understand, my friends

My brothers, my dear ones and family

How we could love one another and fight so much.

I remember that journey we took and the way...

We forgave each other. We needed each other.

We explored each other. We hurt each other.

Between the bleeding and the failing I hid from my pain.

I hid my pain deep within myself so that I could tell myself it was gone.

Every time it opened, I had to run.

Running around the block, sometimes

It would occur to me that something was horribly wrong.

I didn't know what it was.

How could I know what it was?

Intangible, nebulous, clouded...

I thought I knew what love was.

I thought I knew that it was utter devotion in the face of anything.

I thought I knew that it was a long and sometimes painful journey...

But love is not pain.

Love is a gift, a gift given from an eager giver.

I know this now.

It never has anything to do with hurting, only healing.

And while the healing sometimes hurts, it is wholesome.

And wholesomely I love him.

Wholesomely I know the gift he eagerly gives me is his heart.

No strings, no lines, no lies, no betrayal.

I didn't know how pure a thing could be.

So be angry if you must. Hurt and tend your heartwounds.

I am tending mine.

Now you're masquerading as a pale powdered genius

Whose every bad intention has been purged

You could have walked out anytime you wanted but

Face it, you didn't have the courage.

I guess that makes you a full time hypocrite

Or some kind of twisted dilettante

Funny though, people don't usually get so ugly

Until they think they know what they want.

~EC