i couldn't cling to her when she said it
though i had waited my entire life to hear those words
i had waited in the dark forgiving corners of myself
and that house
i had waited with a tear soaked pillow
for her passage to my bed
for a tucked cover and a hand on my hip
in comfort
i had waited when my straight bodied youth blossomed me
into adult hood and the ghosts
of her past became more evident to me
i molded her coldness into excuses
in which i used to console myself
i tucked them into my pillowcase and moved on
with the bleary eyes of a morning
where you stayed up too late the night before

on her porch that day she said it
she drove hard the stake of her past into her own back and
let it push those words out of her chest
through her mouth and into my shoulder
they rained on me
fell on me like the most tender rain in heaven
but instead of holding tighter and feeling cleansed in the
wet of them
they soddened me
for my childhood
for my hiding places
for the fear i always held inside for her
and i said it back
but only with the emptiness and the absence of passion
that comes with being forced
to use excuses to hold you