Loud As Hope

you've reattached that yearning in me that i couldn't get right the first time. there's no more coffee and cigarettes a 3 a.m. or that quiet resentment that always pulsed my life out into something unmanageable. her eyes are like glass and her teeth are sharpened to a point. i planted the memory of love so deeply, i forgot what it was like for my stomach to sink and the veins in my cheeks to swell and expand, blood swirling. i forgot that it's not bad or wrong or weird to still feel like my chest is going to explode when i think of love. the harder i press into you, the safer i feel, and i guess it's kind of the first time i've really felt that without feeling pressured into something. i didn't mean for this to be a love letter, but nine months go by and there's something greater than all the flings and late nights with boys of the past. trust, warmth, comfort, sleep, smiles in dark rooms while our fingers traced the curves of each others cheeks, necks, shoulders, and backs.

and all of it is so terrifying.

being able to look at myself, my face, and the silhouette of my body in a mirror and say to myself you are beautiful, you are loved, reinstalling a confidence that i thought i had once but had covered itself in fear and hate.