Patiently

Watching all the smiling faces, hearing their different laughs and giggles, seeing how happy they all are is just positively disgusting to me. How can anyone love and trust someone that much? What hardships did they each go through, if any!
No. I’m fine right where I’m at. Clutching this chest with white-knuckled hands and the heavy key burning itself into my flesh. I’ll sit here and watch and hear them all.
It’s a pretty big, wooden chest dressed in heavy black chains. The padlock is equally big and is extremely ugly; no one would want to open it if it looks like this. I know. Many people—many men look at it and snicker as they walk away. Just walk away.
I find myself curled up on my side one day, holding this chest, watching the happy couples walk by. Some of the younger ones kick at me and jab me. Their laughter sound like sinister howls to my ears; I clutch the chest tighter until it feels like my fingers are bleeding.
The rain feels like acid on my skin; peeling at it and burning my clothes. I can barely breathe! There’s a piece of glass just a few feet away, calling to me. It’ll be so easy. Down the road, not across the street.
Suddenly, the rain stops.
I can still hear it; beating against something bouncy and hallow. Not even the howling wind can bring it in.
Peeling my eyelids back, and turning my head upwards, I can barely make out your silhouette.
You crouch down to my level; I tremble and scream at you. In spite of that, you nicely say, “Hello.”

You come by every day after that with that stupid sweet smile on your stupid face. Your words are lost to me each time you talk. If I look like I don’t care about you, you’ll leave. That’s how it always is. You’ll see how cold-hearted I am and you’ll go. You’ll go, you’ll go, you’ll go.
Just take care of the chest. Try to make it shine. Try to make it look beautiful. Try to look happy. Smile as you work. Hum as you work.
You take a great interest in my box and my necklace. You ask questions about them. I swat your hands away when you try to touch either of them. When you try to do it again, my nails turn to claws and my voice turns to a scream. “Just leave me alone!”
Still you stay. Smiling happily.
If I don’t look at you, if I pretend you’re not there, you’ll go. Please, just go!

 

The rain still comes from time to time, but, with your stupid umbrella, we don’t get wet. I almost miss the rain; I know the rain. I know how it makes me feel – mentally, emotionally, and physically. There were countless times in these many…months? Years? I don’t know. All I know is that in that time, I almost ran back out into the rain. However, you keep me here with your knee against my thigh.
One shiny day, when I’m actually happy with everything in my life, even with you and your annoying ways, I get lost in the beauty of everything. That’s when you strike. Tickling my sides with a laugh like bells and a voice like a song, you snap the chain of my necklace. And that’s when the fun stops. That’s when I claw at your face and eyes and arms; trying desperately to get my key back.
“You can’t have it!” I cry, eyes burning.
With the key held one hand, you cradle my tear-stained face. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yes, you will.”
You shake your head with that promise shining in your eyes.
Since you have the key now, I let you open my strongbox. One by one they ugly chains fall to the ground, pooling around us both. They even grow as the snake around us. No one seems to notice how I shake or how badly you’re bleeding. They just go about their business; laughing and kissing.
I’ve underestimated the amount of sheer fear when I hear the audible click of the key unlocking the final pad lock. My breathing turns to heavy heaves, my stomach twists until I’m doubling over in pain, and my fingers and toes turn to ice.
“Please, don’t look inside! PLEASE!”
I can’t bring myself to say that you don’t deserve it; you do. Unlike so many before you, you stayed. You talked to me, listened to me and my idiotic words. There’s a chance that you really, truly listened to me. You kept me safe all this time – you kept me out of the rain, the sleet, and snow. Be it by the physically means or just talking to me as the weather took over. Somehow, you even protected me from the mean young couples.
There’s a pause in your movements when you look inside. Were you expecting there to be something beautiful? For there to be an ethereal glow and a song from it? From me?
When you look at me, there are tears in your eyes, which fall one by one. Your Adam’s apple bobs up and down as you swallow your sobs.
“I’m so sorry,” you say softly.
You get up.
I begin to cry. Hiding my face from the world, I fall to my knees in a shaking heap of choked sobs and sniffles. You’ll leave. Of course you’ll leave! Why did I think you’d stay? Everyone I’ve tried to love leaves! Each and every fucking time! I’m so stupid—so fucking stupid. Never ever again will I let this happen. I’ll end it. I’ll build something so impenetrable that no one will even try to climb it or try to dig under it. They’ll just go by.
My throat begins to burn like I ate red-hot coals. I can’t breathe. On their own accord, my fingers claw at my throat.
They stop. You stop them.
“You’re still here?” My voice comes out hoarse and it hurts to breathe.
“Of course I am.” Your hands don’t even shake as you wipe away my tears and under my nose with a soft tissue. I’ve never felt anything so soft and so sure in my entire life. I wish that you’d just keep your hands on my face, but if that’d happen you’d have to keep looking at me and I at you. I can’t look in your eyes, which are so open and so foreign. I just…can’t look at you. But I want to keep feeling you.
“I’m gonna need you to hold this for me, for a while.” Your voice is like a velvet blanket to me – warm and comforting. Your hands don’t even shake as you hand me a large, brightly glowing, beating object. It’s only instinctive that I reach out and take it. As soon as I feel how fragile it is, I thrust it back at you.
“No! No, I don’t want it.”
You shake your head, smiling. “Sorry, I already gave it to you. Keep it safe for me.”
“If you take it back I wouldn’t need to keep it safe. Trust me, I can’t do this.”
“I do trust you.” Your words are like knives to me. They dig deeper and deeper, twisting and turning, in my flesh. I thought that my skin was thick like armor; no words have ever truly hurt me. Yet those four words—that one word, trust, is the sharpest knife I’ve ever heard of. It speaks more to me than you’ll ever know. You gave me your heart and I don’t know why you would. I don’t know what do to with it!
Now, you sit over the open strongbox, reaching oh-so carefully into it. I notice how you flinch and nearly jerk your arms back. No words pass my lips and I silently pray you’ll just leave it alone. It’s no use, you’ll go. You take out a large ball of barbed wire, tangled in a chaotic mess.
Your heart beats strongly in my light hold; I nearly drop it with a shriek. It beats and beats, constricting as you work at the barbed wire inside my chest. Still it glows, some moments brighter than others. You are one determined person, aren’t you? Even with your bleeding hands, you continue your work. Some even snake up your wrists and arms. You don’t care about that. You just want to see what’s underneath.
I know the sharp pain of the wire, the shiny new shards to the rusty old ones, and you working to get them out is a pain I don’t know. It scares me, so I go about any means to make you stop. With the heel of my foot, I hit your back over and over and over again. Screaming at you, telling you how stupid you are for doing this, how useless this is, that you’ll never see. That’ll you’ll stop.
You don’t. Why don’t you?
You still talk to me, even though I rarely say anything in return. On the very rare occurrences we laugh together, too. I hide my smile from you when I laugh at some silly thing you say. Even when we talk I can’t look at you, for the fear of me saying something stupid and seeing the look on your face when I say it.

Your fingers must be numb now; you’ve been working at the barbed wire for years. Why is that? I saw countless pretty girls walk by you, giggling and wiggling their fingers in a flirtatious wave; and yet, you paid them no mind. You just kept busy – even when one girl placed her hand on your shoulder and asked you to leave. Her voice was like honey, words of poison to my ears. You must’ve felt the grip around your heart tighten, because you told her to go away. Those words were like a cool breeze on my skin; blowing away all my worries.
I can’t help but look at the pretty boys that walk by as you work. I smile at them, timidly of course, and they only snicker shaking their heads at me. They’re so handsome, in a way; yet ugly, too. It’s disgusting that such beauty is on disgusting people. A lot of those pretty faces walk by, alone or in a pack the come by, talking at me. I know you see me watching them, smiling with them, and hope you’ll go. For some unspeakable reason, I want you to go.

The brightness of your heart dims and it doesn’t beat as strongly as it once did. The barbed wire seems to be like a forest of thorns around you, and it hurts as you get closer and closer to the center where the rust has become one with it. Again, after months of just sitting by, I start to scream at you. Hit you – with your very heart. I use it against you.
“I HATE YOU!”
That is when your movements stop.
That is when your heart clenches.
That is when your heart freezes.
That is when a large piece of your heart falls to the ground and I realize what I’ve said.
Your fingers, raw and bloody, tremble and your heart feels like stone and it fades even more so. I nearly drop it from the sheer shock of what I’ve done.

The trembles slither up your arms and take hold of your entire body. Even your hair shakes. Shuttering gasps, held in sobs, escape your lips as tears swell in your eyes and flow down your face. You take hold onto the spiked wires and don’t let go. They wrap tightly around your hands; slithering up your forearms and biceps. Your blood swells up to resemble rubies, but fall down like ribbons. You cry and cry, shaking your head and try to work again and say sweet things. Only to stop and cry some more.
My own heart hurts, and I’m crying with you. I say how sorry I am; choking on the words and holding tightly on your slowly beating heart. I hold it to my chest to ease the pain.
It all becomes too much; I fall to my knees and place my head on your shoulder.
Both of us are sobbing, shaking, and bleeding. “I’m sorry!” I never wanted to hurt you. “I’m sorry!” It just hurts me every time you get closer. “I’m sorry!” I’m so scared; every time I let someone close they hurt me. “I’m sorry!” I just don’t want to get hurt. “I’m sorry!” I can’t love you like you love me; I don’t know how – no one ever taught me how. “I’m so sorry!” Please, forgive me.
Against my better judgment, against the voices screaming at me not to, I press myself against you; nuzzling you, hugging, kissing you. You don’t move. You still cry and shake. Oh, how I wish I can just take back those evil, poisonous words. I don’t hate you, not really, I don’t think. I know I don’t love you, but I do care for you. Really…I do. I’m pretty sure.

 

The wire around us is like a forest. Protecting us from others, but hurting us if we so much as step a toe out of line. Yet, you keep tugging and pulling at them. Each time it hurts you—each time I hurt you. I know I hurt you, I test you. To see if you’ll stay, to see if you’ll hurt me. In a way, you do. You just keep getting closer and closer, worming yourself in my heart. That’s scary and it hurts a little bit. But…I think…it’s good…in a way. No one’s ever done this for me before.
I try to put your heart back together; bitterly reminding myself that I didn’t want this for this very reason. I have to work on it though; to make you feel better, to make you the person you were before. Everything surprisingly fits together perfectly – even though the smaller bits are more difficult to place. Rubbing the pad of my thumb over the seams, it begins to stick and blend together. Your heart is fluttering in my lap, beating more strongly with each passing day. Glowing again, too. I never realized how beautiful it was before, how beautiful and strong you are.
Not even daring to pull myself away from you, I continue to buff out all the other scuffs. Did I cause these or did others? I dare not ask; you only just started moving again. With each and every tug of the spikes, I can feel it in my chest. Each one less painful than the last, until I feel nothing at all. Our forest of metal and pain slither away like snakes; hissing and spitting like alley cats.
Clutching your heart to my chest, I watch in wonderment; fearing what is to come next.
Your movements are fast and nimble; careful not to pull too harshly. Your pants come out in huffs and puffs. Does it still hurt you or do you know how close I am to letting you in?
I have to hold onto your heart tightly. I need that comfort. I need that knowledge that you gave this to me, that I won’t hurt you again.
I won’t…. I won’t…. I won’t…. I won’t….
A cry of victory comes from your lips and tears of joy fall from your eyes. When you reach in, the dark wires fade away into mist. No more fighting, no more resisting. I watch how you hands tremble as you reach in and gingerly scoop up my small bleeding heart. The blood from your hands mingle and mix with mine; seeping into the punctures scattered on my heart.
I cry with you, pressing myself against you. You’ve spent so many years working to get to my heart; learning things about me that I never knew existed.  And I know nothing of you. I only know that you are a determined and passionate man. Holding me close; protecting me from those that wish to harm me. You kiss me with such passion that I forget how to breathe.

I don’t know who you are, not truly, but all that I ask is that you be patient.