I want a home

  Something in my heart pleads

  Yet I silence it with stolen glances and breaths taken on concrete

  I want him mine, something in me says all too weak

  And all I do is smile towards his distracted eyes and wink

  Where are you going next? My lips speak around ease

  Where away from me? My heart questions in defeat

  Here to that store

  There to that hill

  Somewhere in a kingdom where only rivers end.

  I nod and nod and nod

  I want a home in him, something pleads

  He doesn’t, my clenched hands repeat.

  On most nights, I breathe

  Did you know that rivers run?

  Always and forever

  Flowing and not stopping

  On most nights, I try to breathe.

  Do you know what becomes of a home built on river shores?

  I try

  I try

  I try to breathe

  It drowns.

  There's an ache in my heart all too clear

  When night quietens down and only we breathe

  A shine in my eyes you gaze at with a fond everything

  Yes, yes, it's water

  No, no, it's not what you seek.

  There's a tremble in my hands even when buried in ground

  A hesitation to my voice that spells too many words I hope you never read

  Yes, I'm alone. Yes, I want a home.

  Yes, it's you. Yes, it always has been.

  I want the kind of home you build

  On steady grounds with a picket fence

  I want the kind of home that stays

  That stays that always stays

  No

  No, that's not it

  I just want you to stay

  I always have.

  You're always quick on your feet

  Even when standing, even when resting

  Nimble fingers light feet

  A presence so faint you have to strain everything to see

  I would watch you dance around all what life gives

  With a faint smile and a stubborn utterly breathtaking glint

  I would watch you skip over life

  Like a stone on a river does

  Except you don't stop

  You don't fall

  You only ever flow

  It's beautiful

  It's everything.

  It's worth the brightness in your gaze

  The pride in your smile

  The blisters on my feet.

  Our village is a tiny one

  Surrounded by a forest and nothing else

  The elders say in that threatening tone

  Children, don't step into the unknown.

  You would sway in boredom and wait

  Then look at me with a shining gaze

  Mischievous and calm

  Like the unknown is only for those who don't flow

  Want to go home?

  And I would nod like I always do

  First, with guileless curiosity

  Then, with fond confusion

  Couldn't quite understand it then

  Why we never say the same words

  When speaking of home

  Then I understood

  Then I carried

  The ever-present dread between the fondness

  Yes, we can go home

  Yes, we always can

  But I only ever follow you

  Your home is not mine

  Or perhaps

  My home is not yours.

  In the forest, there was a quaint river unsullied by all

  You would sit at its bank and stare

  Til night touches the sky

  Til I have to hold tears back

  My fingers dig into the earth, and I bite my lips

  I'm never going to tell you how I fear every water you touch

  It's your home it's your home it's your everything

  But god, how I wish it could be mine too

  How I wish I was anything but a human that fears rivers and ends.

  It's the fact that you are here

  The fact that when I look enough

  When I try enough

  You are always here

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  But my heart is troublesome

  My heart is childish

  It wants to know that it has you

  Even when not looking

  It doesn't

  I don't

  I don't think anyone on this earth can.

  That's just the beauty in you

  That's just the river in you

  It's the fact you are here

  It's the fact you are not.

  I don't wish to stop you

  I don't wish any amount of despair on you to the day I die

  I want you to be happy and thriving and always always

  With that light in your eyes.

  It's just difficult sometimes

  It's difficult to build a home in somebody

  And watch it leave every time.

  You will come back

  And I will wait

  I just wonder I just question

  When will you not?

  I hardly compare to the mountains and the trees

  I hardly ever compare.

  When you are close, I am too

  You giggle at me all shy and swat my arms away

  And I laugh and continue it like a joke

  It may be the worst joke I told in life.

  I need you to breathe

  I need you to breathe

  Even though I don't have you, I'm drowning

  Even though I avoid waters like the plague

  Even though I pull you towards land with mirthful eyes and tight hands

  I can't escape what you are.

  It only ever lessens when I'm so close it'd be impossible for you to run

  When I'm so close, I can imagine

  Entering your chest and your heart and your blood

  And staying there

  Forever and ever

  And ever.

  You speak of far lands with a fascination I watch in silence

  The trees how their colours differ

  The food how its taste shocks

  The beauty and the people and the roads

  The flowing and the never-stopping

  And the gifts you brought.

  Sometimes, it lights me up so much that my entire being softens in your hands

  And sometimes

  Sometimes, it pains me to my core

  That the softness has an ache I'm quite familiar with

  And since you never notice a difference, I think

  That I'm always like that in front of you

  Soft light fond

  Aching hurt pleading

  All synonyms of my love.

  I let a breath out after months of waiting

  I haven't been forgotten

  Your eyes still look towards me

  My heart still jumps.

  I accept the gifts with distracted hands

  Always in a hurry to touch you in some way

  Are you real

  Are you here

  Am I real for you, too?

  I put the gifts away with fast words I don't quite remember

  Aching to have you in my hands

  Not your heart nor your home

  Nor much of what I seek

  But to a parched heart, and that's all I am in front of you, anything is enough

  Any part of you is enough.

  You are the river that drowns me

  The well that escapes me

  The water I wish I could ever have enough of

  The water I wish I never touch.

  You are everything in my life, it seems

  Didn't leave one thing to me

  That's fine

  That's okay

  I don't seek much beyond you.

  I return the gifts on the nights you leave

  I go to the forest to the unknown

  To the first place that took you away from me

  And I hang them on trees

  Bury them in soil

  Scatter them on flowers

  I get down to my knees on the river bank, and I whisper

  To the unknown to the waters to the world

  Please return them to me.

  I get down to my knees

  And I pray

  Only the world that is in you

  Could ever lead you back to me.

  I do not know if the pleading of a human reaches the world

  But you always return to me with new gifts, and I liken them to new hope

  I always accept with open arms and open love

  It might not be a sign, but it might

  Let this be a way I can speak to your home

  Let my prayers be a way I can ever be in your home.

  People always look at us with some feeling I try to ignore

  Awe from the younglings searching for love

  Knowing from those who have it

  And yearning from those who once had

  The last one stops in my throat

  Makes me swallow all my words

  I avoid, and I ignore.

  Otherwise, I'll just tell them all

  Yes, I searched for it

  Yes, I have it

  Yes, I'm always searching for it

  Yes,

  I'm always yearning.

  It's not a story I speak to anyone

  Even if my everything is open in front of your eyes

  I would like to not agree to any of the pity-filled eyes

  Darling, your life is ahead of you

  Child you can love again

  Rivers are dangerous

  Rivers don't stay

  How are you going to build a home on a rocking wave?

  I bite back words

  I bite back tears

  I turn my back and search for you again.

  They tell me to leave like I can

  They tell me to leave

  Like I have anything of a river in me.

  I'm human

  I'm human

  I'm human to the last inch of me

  I'm selfish and greedy and arrogant and hurried

  I love and hold on and never let go

  I stay I stay I stay

  I wonder if that makes me less than human

  Or more

  But it does not matter it does not

  It does not make me water you can hold.

  I tell this story in the only way I can

  In holding your hand with a scolding tone

  You always liked to touch the unknown.

  In staring at you in most of what you do

  Like every second holds a new you.

  In my heart beating for you

  So steadily and loyally

  That I fear sometimes It's solely for you.

  In the far lands I smile upon hearing

  And the gifts I cherish while praying

  And the water I dry off you when it comes from a raging sea.

  I do it in the ache that tells me you're here

  And in the home I rebuild every day

  You liked those purple flowers from that pretty land

  I put them around my home and inside my heart

  And wonder with trembling hands

  If you can ever stay.

  I tell it, and I tell it, and I tell it

  And I wonder if I will ever stop

  The words of my helpless love and my calling heart.

  (The lonely lover tells the story and often forgets

  That they are not the only one who can.

  The flower-like soul waits while the seasons change

  They greet the rain and the bees and bloom in their garden of chosen love

  But nothing quite lights the soul like the river that passes through with a delicate step

  The flower unfurls with a bashful love

  And the river so, so taken by its beauty

  Keeps the garden forever in its run.

  The soul forgets and forgets

  That a river returning against its current

  Is a river so deeply and utterly in love.

  But it is the fear that binds humans to earth

  It is the fear the river has

  When its love often forgets

  How one who is all water

  Is still quite human in the end.)