Work Text:
From the moment in which
You held her face in your hands,
Warm skin beneath your palms
And a curious smile staring back
Into your awestruck eyes;
You felt the world held up
With the gentle press of your fingers,
And nails pulling through curls
Of fiery oranges and reds.
You wondered how well
The dots on her face would connect
If you tried to see the constellations
Hidden within the universe
Held between your hands.
What might flourish
If every star would align for
Just the two of you.
And to think,
That a single decision
To deny the hand that reached,
Or a single gust of wind
To fill their sails and take them away,
Or a simple hour
That you drifted further into sea,
May have changed your turn of fate
To deny you this life.
But here you are
With every choice you made
Weighing heavy on your shoulders
Like a burden that one
Should never have to bear.
But despite every sin
That your confession never fully repented
It led you here
To this very moment.
Her arms are the very pillars
Holding open the chapel doors
To allow you one last hallowed touch
Of which they tried to take from you.
They stole the breath in which
You breathed prayers from your lungs.
But the whispered words in your ear
Sound so much like the words of worship
And the soft caresses against your skin
Are reminiscent of something holy.
Her hands pull you even closer,
They card through the thick foam of your hair
Until it’s the only thing
You’d ever want to feel.
And her warm skin presses
Against your cold, unfamiliar form
Longing to know it as familiar
As her own.
You hold her as well,
Trace the line of her shoulders
With a scarred, shaking hand.
Your skin is rough, broken by scales,
Damp from a life under the sea;
And she shivers.
And you know
That you have done something wrong.
You begin to pull away
The space between you swallowing
Gulps of fresh air as you separate.
Your hands,
Trained to kill without thought,
Lift from her perfect form.
So unburdened by sin such as your own
It feels wrong to hold her so gently
When your cold hands are clawed
And sharpened.
But she stops you
And smiles at you kindly.
You feel her hands, fresh callouses
And dull nails,
As they caress your shoulders.
Chasing away the cold so unholy
With the warmth of her embrace.
Her soft, lilting accent fills the air
With jumps and shivers
And warm sweetened words.
“Stay here,” she prays,
And tucks you into her arms
Where you can feel the thrumming
Of her calm heartbeat.
It’s all so unfamiliar to you
Who has never felt the warmth
Of another lover,
Has never held someone
In the way that you hold her,
Has never cared for someone
In the way that you care for her.
It’s overwhelming, really, the feelings
That swirl in your chest,
Like the pulsing waves of the ocean
Cradling the two of you in an
Everlasting whirlpool of emotions
You will never be able to understand.
You feel you were never meant
To love in such a way
And to feel a love so certain
You would remember it clearer
Than your own name.
But it feels natural,
Like it was always meant to be.
As if fate itself laid your path
To put you right here at this moment.
As if all the fighting,
All the pain,
All the terror and fear
Of growing up the way you did
Had all been with this one goal in mind.
Because Heaven knew how sweet
Catharsis would taste
After a life knowing no love or joy.
And between the Earth and the Sea,
And the home so apathetic that
It never really felt like home,
You find your place
Buried in her arms
Staring at the perfect blemishes on her face,
Drawing patterns into her skin,
And committing her to memory
So you never forget what it feels like
To be loved.
You feel her hands in your hair,
Her breath against your face,
As you tangle together like vines
Around a fallen fence,
Picking up the pieces of a structure
Long collapsed
In order to make something beautiful.
Her lips touch your temple and you
Can’t help but shiver.
To think that every mistake you made,
Every sin that you committed,
Every failure,
Everything that you ever did wrong
Still led you here.
Undeserving and unholy,
A monster held in the arms of someone
So deserving of love
That you will never know how to give.
You trace her scars,
Wanting to know the story behind
Each and every one.
You want to know who would have
Dared to hurt the one you love.
Because if you cannot love
In a way that makes you holy,
You can love in the way that you were trained.
To love in the way that only a weapon
Would know how to love.
You see all her scars and yet
It feels rude to ask,
Knowing that you bear as many
As she does.
And she never asks, but she stares;
Not in a way that judges
But in that fiery, protective way
That she treats everything she loves.
As if she hopes that
If she’s strong enough,
She can project you from
All the battles that rage in your mind.
And you wish
That you had grown up
Knowing what it felt like to love,
And to be loved
By someone like her.
Because with her arms wrapped tightly
Around your shaking, trembling form,
You can’t help but feel protected,
Comforted,
Safe,
In her warm embrace.
And you know that your younger self
Would have needed care like this.
And it’s all you can do to hope
That when you pull her close
And bury your face into her smoky-scented hair
That your clawed hands are not too cold,
And that your grip is not too tight,
And that when you kiss her,
Your lips aren’t too rough.
She smiles at you so softly and
Your heart swells with adoration
And in her embrace,
With her arms curled tight around your form,
You almost feel human.