like wine upon your heart

I've been struggling with words, this week--wanting to write, not knowing what. Sensing a gift in the birthing... But even so--images and sentences and actions and metaphors at war in my mind, throwing each other against walls, beating each other bloody, grappling without victory.

Then today, I spoke religion and science and flesh and spirit--ideas and connections, concepts. It calms my battling mind. It does, and it did. I found myself, close-eyed, centered. And I saw him.

The one I thought I'd never write to--the one with the smile and the grace, the magnet with the skill to attract and repel. The one gifted with self-preservation. I told you, time and again, how my instincts would insist I keep that one at my opposite pole, in any given room, as far from survivalist me as possible. Alas, the room we met in didn't admit that me at all. A cruel trick upon her, but best for the rest of us. He wouldn't have trusted her, either.

Yes, close-eyed and centered, I saw the truth and the irony. Proclaiming distance, I've been writing to him all this time. Not realizing it? Or not admitting it? Either or both, it matters not: I know now to whom I speak.

The one I assumed would never listen was the one that heard when I called. The one I'd never have gifted--with the sweetness of a kid on Christmas. He who needed to be trusted; he who lacked the mirror to see the apple orchard in your heart. More fruit than he ever knew how to harvest--falling from branches, seeding the ground.

Sweet to make your acquaintance, graceful boy. Sorry to have not greeted you before.