Weakness and Strength (a Santa Fe poem)

I remember that time when we were laughing with arms across each other’s shoulders, looking to the future like predators, and when we got wild there were slices and bruises all over our bodies, but we didn’t feel them at the time, no, not at all, and in the morning we couldn’t believe how many slices and bruises we had and where did they all come from? But it just went to show that when you’re feeling ten feet tall, you’re too big for pain.

I remember that time when I was sick and alone, stumbling with sloughed shoulders to the bathroom and back and back to the bathroom, so soon after, and I stepped wrong and stubbed my toe and fell to the floor with tears in my eyes because no toe stubbing had ever hurt that bad in all of my life, and I didn’t know it was possible for pain like that to strike a body, so willing was I to just give up the ghost: to let my broken body finally be at peace.

I remember those times when we were walking or driving and I was being mean; I was being mean because you made me mean, and I say that not to scapegoat you and sidestep responsibility for my own cruelty, it was just that: when we were together (and almost no other times in my life) I could hear myself being mean, I could feel my body being nasty, and I hated that, and I hated you for bringing that out of me, for making me feel that, and you got defensive (rightfully so), and you would try to be mean back to me, you would try to play my schoolyard bully game, but it didn’t work because I didn’t care enough to let it work, for as far as I could tell, everything I said was fierce and right, and everything you said was unconsidered and desperate, and you couldn’t touch me, you couldn’t touch me, you couldn’t touch me at all.

I remember those six words you said without any preparation, only because they were true and so simple, and in their honesty was everything that needed to be said by anyone to anyone and they fucked me up for months afterwards (I still feel the occasional shuddering flashback) and I couldn’t look in the mirror without wanting to cry, without seeing my stupid showy tattoo telling everyone who never cared everything I intellectually concluded about the world, and in your six simple words, the hypocrisy of it was the only living truth, and in the days and weeks that followed, an unkind glimmer of an unknown’s eye could make me crack, and I would crack with tears in my eyes wondering how it could be that everyone everywhere, in every pair of shoes across the world could be so cold and cruel, and what were we wasting our time on this planet for if it was all only to be so cold and so cruel, so I hung my head as I walked and I didn’t want to see anyone’s eyes because no matter who they were, it would hurt too much, it would hurt too much.

But I also remember that other time when you said I was so sweet to you, you said I was too good to you because I wouldn’t back down, I wouldn’t let it slide, I wouldn’t give up my grip during those few so precious hours, and there was no outside world, there was no such thing as time because no appointment, no obligation, no physical need could have been great enough to take me away from you right then because you needed me, you needed me and I was there, and I didn’t walk away, I didn’t leave, and you came through to the other side, and you said I was good, and I knew I was good because I felt good, and I could see the sweat and relief on your forehead, and I knew that together, we had done good.