Love is a funny thing, you know.
I used to be in love with a man who forced me away to prevent himself from dragging me into his depression, and now I've found myself in love with a man who needs me to remember the way back out of the rabbit hole, but he keeps me in the dark and I didn't sign up to be a guide.
There's a good man living on a street I regret ever leaving, and he has a good mind and good intentions. And when he touches my hair, holds my hand... when he catches my eye, it feels like letting go of everything past that tethers me down. And I can't shake the idea that maybe he finds relief next to me, too.
Because maybe a good man on a street I love dearly is sitting at his round table and thinking about an honest woman who lives in a nice neighbourhood and has a nice heart and nice intentions. And maybe the good man is thinking about her fingers on his neck and between his fingers. And perhaps the man might even think of the new year and coming home to find
relief.
Yes, love's a funny thing. We're born with an innate sense of it - it brings us into our very existences, and nurtures us before we even catch our first glimpse of the world. And while we grow with the food of love, we are given the shelter of trust: a shelter that carries on long after we've breathed our first earthly air.
And we let people into the shelter, and we share the food of love and the warmth of joy.
But there comes a day when we let someone move into the shelter to stay with us there, and when they leave, they leave ruin in their wake and the shelter is no longer big enough for any more than one.
(That's where you come in, baby.)
And so, I will find relief in a new year. I will find relief next to a good man,
and I will expect nothing,
but I will know that I have everything.