Unless i feel you

Maybe i’m tethered. Maybe i’m chained.

Maybe i should tell my heart to stop

Pounding at the sound of your name

They don’t see you.

They only see your fist

But i know your honey apple kiss

Your smoky carress

How tenderly your fingertips

Loosen my dress

And i must confess that your touch

Does not always make me tingle,

But when it is good, Baby,

It is great

Maybe i need you

Maybe i don’t feel alive

Unless i feel you

Whether it be a clenched fist or a soft kiss

Maybe you need me

i know the man you are

The man you can be

Maybe if you let my golden affection

Seep into your hardened pores

You would hold my heart

As tenderly as I hold yours

i can plant the seed of love

In your garden

That has been

Cracked and eroded

By a burning hate

i know this fury is not your fate

i know that you are more than your past

So i can see past your clenched fist

To your soft kiss

i know these bruises are not what you have meant for me

i know that you are good for me

And, i think, somehow i am good for you

And, Baby, you are the only thing

That i know to be true

I won’t go

Because if i did

i don’t know what i would do

Momma keeps telling me to leave

But i’ve got nowhere else to go

i never really learned how to be alone

i never really learned how love is to be shown

Your name, Love, is etched into my bones

You build me

And you break me

Out of the shrapnel of your soul

You make me

With each hit

By the touch of your fist

You affirm my

Existence

If i cease to be with you, Love,

i fear i will simply cease to be

You are inexplicably intertwined with me

So, Momma, i’m gonna stay

i’m gonna pay the price that he needs me to pay

i know it’s not easy, but it is better this way

So, Momma, i’m gonna stay

-Delilah Davies