Repair, Recall, Replace

It was good. Hours ago, it was fine and good and sweet.

Then just like that—kablammo! I find myself clattering back to earth in a defeated heap. I knew I would. The machinery of my heart has fallen to such disuse, become so fractured, rusted and dusty that I should have known better. Had I started slowly and progressed by degrees I may have been able to guard myself at least a little. I would have detected potential danger and had the ability to correct, but that’s not my way. It’s always zero to atmospheric without a pause. I’m the fucking SCUD missile of romantic entanglements.

I knew it I’d do it. I always know it. It’s too much, too soon, too far, too fast. I’ve spun through a thousand days in one just like I always do, and I know how that ends. I can see the threat I pose to myself long before it even raises its head, so it’s not my warning system that’s faulty. Well, it is, but it tends to err on the side of too much, too loud, too soon.

Oh. That sounds familiar.

I left my heart in stasis because I knew it needed repairs. It’s been non-functional for almost a decade because I wanted it that way. It’s never been right and I thought if I put it away for while I might be able to absorb enough experience or maturity or at least common sense to better direct it next time out. But apparently it doesn’t work that way. Nothing I’ve learned in the past eight years has done fuck-all to change my inner love junkie. I want it all, and I want it now.

Christ, I’m a mess. I know this isn’t real because it can’t be—there’s just no way. It makes no sense to even hope the misguided MO that’s led to one flaming train wreck after another would suddenly garner me any real happiness. I know it’s just that it’s been too long. Or is that just what I’m telling myself?

(Do I know you? Have I made the effort to understand you? Or is my interest in you centered on your interest in me? Oh, that’s bad. I don’t want that to be true. But when I think about you, I think about the way you make me feel; treasured, safe, beautiful, wanted, interesting, sexy, and valuable. That’s doing you a huge injustice. You deserve better. You are so much more than your connection to me. You’re funny and smart and sweet and sexy as hell. You have a presence, a subtle confidence that disarms me, and an uncanny ability to know what I need and how I need it. But there it is again; me.

I ache for you, but even if you were to open your arms to me, it’s wouldn’t be fair to go to you without the certainty that it is you I burn for, not just the rush and heat and sweet torture of what I imagine we could be.)

I cannot allow myself to fall in love with love or in lust with lust. I will not fall for the sake of falling. And yet, even as I type that, I know it’s not true. When the edge presents itself, I will do whatever I damn well please at that moment and fuck the consequences. And there I am again. Crash landing number 452.

Ugh. Why am I even doing this? It’s ridiculous. I’m maudlin and moody, swinging from fluttery euphoria to grim cynicism in a matter of hours. Why do I always hang my heart where it doesn’t belong? It’s almost a pathological compulsion. Ask me to be yours and I will bolt like hell for the hills, but tell me you don’t want me, can’t have me, that it’s not right, and I’m suddenly writing sonnets and trying on your last name (okay, not really, but near enough). The inevitable and never-ending crash landings from this syndrome are bad enough, but not as bad as what I’m afraid that says about the nature of my heart. Who would ever trust my love (should I ever offer it again) knowing its tenacity is in reverse proportion to his availability? That’s horrible. I don’t think I can live with that.

I want to be a true heart. I want my love to be tenacious, deliberate and reliable. I want to be sure that the cannonade of butterfly wings under my rib cage is indicative of more than my need to get loved and laid. I want to be able to trust myself so I know those I care for can safely put their trust in me.

I wish I could rewire me from the inside.