The Ship and the Anchor

I thought I lost you for a moment.

That is to say I ever had you,

Which I didn’t.

But this evening I thought for a second you were gone.

Full force retreat out of my life.

If I know what anything looks like

I know what the boots of 1000 soldiers

 across a muddy field looks like.

And I thought you’d gone.

Thought I’d done something wrong

Made some social faux pas

Made some mistake that shattered the delicate blown glass idea we’d made together.

And the shakes started forming under my skin

And the tears welled up

And I tried to breathe and tell myself it’d be okay.

That I’d faced things like this a million different times.

To not mourn for something that was always just in my head.

But then you came back.

I had that brief panic

And then I remembered who you were.

You are the anchor.

You are not holding me down

But holding me in place.

For it is not the anchor that sinks the ship

But the ship’s weaknesses in the storm.

I thought I’d lost you.

Thought that silk string we’d tied around our fingers

With our child like grins gapping and pulsing

Thought the strings we’d stretched these miles

Laying each mile carefully down with promises of futures undefined

I thought this string

Had finally reached it’s full length and snapped

Just like all the other silk strings I have wrapped around my knuckles.

Frayed edges of friendships and loves that they swore were as eternal as the horizon.

Now they’re just little ringlets of reminders of people who I once occupied a space in their heart

But now they only rent part time in mine.

But for some reason

Some reason I can’t explain

You’re always dishing out more silk string every time I try and turn to run.

Making this eventual break of string impossible.

Because so many have taught me that if I run

The other won’t chase.

It will just snap and break

Whatever it is that we had.

But you.

You’re different with your sweet smile

Your eyes that tell me everything is going to be fine

And your tongue that spits out words like

Love and friendship and happy and calm

Words that sew themselves into blankets and warm me on winter nights.

And so I’m sorry I doubted you.

I’m sorry I tugged at this string and lept off the cliffs of self doubt

Expecting this string to break and to send me down.

But you.

You’re different from all the rest.

And I keep telling myself you’re not

Shaking my head trying to not hear the way your words feel across my skin

But I can’t block it out

And I don’t want to block it out.

I just wish I could believe it.

I wish I could believe it

Because I think you might be the answer to the prayer I made when I was 5 years old.

Asking for Him to send me someone I could believe in again.

Someone who didn’t break me the way all the others did.

But over the years I just learned to break myself.

Not let them have the satisfaction of tearing me apart.

But you

You could be that answer.

The someone I could believe in.

And the way I felt when I thought I lost you

Proves it to me.

We have nothing

And yet it tore me apart to think you were gone.

And that’s how I knew you were someone

In whom I could believe in.