Bright toothy smiles and glimmering eyes

Fixed on a lens meant to capture happiness.

Behind the photo, a renewed sense of purpose meant to push me into the next chapter.

But…and there’s always a but…

Residual pain felt from a previous slight

That doesn’t fade so much as it pulses,

Oscillating from strong to weak and back again,

Like a metronome counting the ticks of time,

Beat after beat, it reminds me that time is moving forward at a consistent tempo,

But progress moves much slower and in sporadic bursts mixed in with slow drags of stomach-churning reminders that past hurts don’t just magically disappear.

Instead they hide beneath the surface, waiting for a song to come on or a hint of his giggle or a memory that flashes before my eyes,

Just enough of a prick in my emotional side to awaken the beast of trauma to ensure that I don’t forget the lessons I learned, or should have learned.

Shared and treasured intimacy turned black, charred from the bridge burned through lack of respect and mishandled wounds,

Projected onto me as if I were the one who hurt him in childhood.

And all I want to do is heal it for him,

But that isn’t up to me; it’s not my job.

I did my part…I was honest and open,

And I tried to break him open…

But those wounds run deep, and he kept me out of his sphere…

By preventing me from sharing any part of myself that could have an impact on his soul,

By shutting down my voice and my light,

By distancing himself emotionally, only offering his body.

And when honesty became too much for him, he ripped it all away and left me standing by myself wondering what I did wrong.

I never asked for forever; I only asked for something real…

But real scares most children trapped in men’s bodies because realness tears down the delusions we create,

Walls that protect us from the truth of ourselves,

Truths we don’t want to face because then we would have to change, to grow, to move beyond the confines of what is comfortable.

This is where I always end up with men,

Watching them run away as I stand in their wake, clutching my own heart in one hand and their fear in the other,

Holding the whole bag so-to-speak that once held my hope of something true, something that could at least blossom into mutual respect and love of some sort, even if only plutonic.

And so…I put my heart in the bag and drop his fear on the curb,

And I lock that bag in a protected place until it feels safe to slide it back out,

And I watch and listen to its pulse, much like that metronome that reminds me again of the fact that time is continuing on,

With no regard for my aspirations, my dreams, or my desires,

My need for a love so pure that it expands beyond time and space,

Sliding through a crack in the universe to prove my worthiness simply by existing in another dimension…

A dimension I like to call infinity where I see my reflection in a puddle on the street,

And just beyond the last ripple is a man walking away, not understanding that his future is his past and his past, his future.