Cage

I have to love you through a cage. You are my great white shark. You're beautiful. You're powerful and brave and hard, so hard to love, my shark, so full of teeth and I believed I could dive beneath that water and swim but I'm losing my limbs. My excuses vamoosing to be this stupid. I have to choose different. I have to love you through a cage. My great black bear, your teeth gleam through a glare. They are teeth that could tear off my skin but I see you wearing a grin. I see it shine like the curve of the moon.. And your laugh and your hugs. I love it so much when your arms wrap round my gut. So soft I forgot that those arms come with claws primed to pounce and to maul me if I move too suddenly, and I don't want to run but I'm maxed out on regret for the time I spent playing dead to avoid that claw's edge. Cutting off pieces of me and feeding you them so you would not starve and now I'm something less than I was at the start but even if I'm limping, at least I'm walking. Whatever I have to sacrifice, no matter how hard, I’ll begin a new act in my life, whether written in ink or in spit, I made a promise that I would survive this. And you growl at me, you cry and you plead, asking why all these boundaries through tears in your eyes and I have to hide all the blood that I leak and trick you to think that my heart's not broken so that I can start over. I show you a cold front so maybe you'll give up. I can't be weak to a lion, I must scream. I have to love you through my rage. I have to curl my lips up, my pearl white fangs flexed out. My cactus arms stretched out as if to beckon a hug, but covered in needles and you held me despite them. And you left blood on my quills to write with. And you claim to have wasted the time spent but it’s our life and our time can never be worthless and now I need you to survive this. Love me like a page in your life and turn it.