they break each other's hearts
as if
they were bottles
and threaten wildly
with the ragged ends
prepared
to battle
for the blame

neither
would admit
this is all a defense
to protect
the still wounded organ
in their chest

each
would happily point the finger
and lay the guilt
in their lover's bed

but both
will sleep tonight
with the shadowy figure
of regret

I am not the easiest person always to get on with. I have lots of plans so am often busy, I advocate (often loudly) for my needs to be met, I'm terrible at playing politics. I am not particularly cuddly- a feral cat, I need my space to roam, and I can flip sometimes from purring to hissing because your touch reminds me of something from my past. I forgive but don't forget- I love easily but not always well. I try to accept feedback and it's more successful sometimes than others. I'm impulsive and wary in equal measures. My trust is given easily, but when lost, is hard won.

Relationships are not easy for me. My job requires a certain level of detachment and a constant alertness for the other shoe to drop. It's what's kept me safe over the years, but also made me slow to warm to physical contact when I'm at home. Sometimes I genuinely wonder if I am someone who can be in relationships or if I am actually meant to get through life fighting alone. The idea that being alone is my lot in life is terrifying but I am in my element when helping people develop... and no one ever stays with their trainer. It's a temporary gig.

I'm shit at being a martyr though. I want my chance at happiness. Hell, I've imagined that I might spawn a kid or have that fucking white picket fence. Life's pretty good at slapping some sense into me though, and reminding me that I didn't choose settling down. On some level I chose this instability, this struggle, and I must lie in the bed that I have made.

Sometimes I wonder if I really am a Domme or if I'm just controlling. Doing a workshop on BDSM and abuse, I feel terrified that perhaps I am just as bad as the people I call out. I thought that I try to help people stand up straight, and when I read the checklists I think "that's not me, I don't do that". But would I be able to recognize it in myself? Or am I that good at pulling the wool over my own eyes?

I am a delicate flower encased in titanium. I can be selfish, and cruel, and protective. I can also be grateful, sweet, and fiercely caring. But I'm fighting too many battles on too many fronts- I can't be in the trenches for all of them. Perhaps wartime is not the time for a lover. Perhaps it's the only time it really matters. I don't know.

I have wondered before if perhaps I am best at the girlfriend experience. I can play the part for a period of time, and I'm excellent at it. But it's not the first time that I have questioned my ability to be the girlfriend- my ability to be someone who makes time and space to love and be loved. In my heart of hearts, I wonder, every night, if I am in fact deeply unlovable. But I don't want to be the martyrs I hate so I shove those feelings to the side and it's more workshops, more work, more projects, more people.

Can you blame someone else while also feeling wildly that you had to change, adapt, do better, be better? Asking yourself if it would change anything if you were just the girl next door? I resent wondering if I should give up the world I've built for myself but am so deeply terrified that if I don't I will never find that love I seek- because who loves the whore when the virgin is so deified? Is there no safehouse for me?

I've been told that spilling emotions like these on the internet for the world to see is too vulnerable, too public, too dramatic. But I have no private. I only have this blog. It's the internet in which I truly hide for safety-I can scream into the ether without any expectation of return. And yeah, I get raw, and messy, and real. I'm human. I'm made of meat.

And I'm not always strong enough to pretend that I don't bleed.