Pulled under, the sky turns dark overhead. Sound slows in my eardrums until silence. My body shivers every so often, releasing the traumatic software left in me, glitched and twitching.
This is tending.
I want to be here and see the damage. I don’t want to be here and reexperience it. He kisses me. His breath warm on my skin as he reminds me that I’m not lost. I’m in his hands.
Fragments of fear, grief, worry, hope, betrayal. Hope. Hope hurts most. Unrequited hope. I gather these little stars into my chest, holding them close.
I answer hope. Violence breaks away.
A hero to myself.
Loki’s safekeeping and guidance deliver me gently to land.
My grateful tears soak the bedsheets. Old longings met in his space.
My body self-corrects where once there was brutality and abandonment. Now there is his love, and there is my willingness to be loved,
fearlessly receptive.
