ISABEL puma KENNER

Wish

My love for you is hard because I can only imagine it existing in a time and place when life is quiet, slow, still – and I don’t know that life is ever meant to feel this way. At least not for me. I used to believe you when you told me there was a life like that for me, I just had to take it.

When I ripped, plucked, scaled myself from you I learned how to performatively regenerate like it didn’t make a sound, ripple, drop. Then I find myself perfectly positioned in broad daylight to see everything we lost and it’s hard to fathom how I silenced it.

I don’t like who I am when I’m around you, but I like who you are when I’m not around you. When your love runs pure and I’m not the center of your world. When I’m not your perfect woman and you still want to look me in the eye.

I hate how hard it is to feel what happened to us. It felt impossible in it and still now that we’re out. There is a current beneath where I quietly sense truth, and in that truth I’m humbled, apologetic, serene.

You were the only person that softened me and allowed me to feel small without feeling weak. An intentional helplessness. I don’t want to forget you or write you off like I did the others. But I have to learn from you in a way I’ve never known.

I don’t think I really listened to you behind your cloud, haze. Somewhere in there I sensed truth, but our lives were all wrong. But I think that’s alright. I prefer loving you as a stranger.

You were weak and I didn’t want to be too. When you become a man maybe I’ll feel safe to love you. For now I’ll go back to flipping on sobriety and stoicism, resentment and recalibration. I’ll go on forgetting you, in the back of my mind regretting how easy it is to forget you – and I won’t stop wondering why I’m this way and if you’re okay.