My braids are too heavy to chase you down the shoreline now. The waves are right here in front of me.
In the summer, it was easy. We blazed in a furnace of our passions and sweaty skin, but didn't have the fuel to sustain the fire. So I began chopping down trees, and you opted for twigs.
I get it. Just "getting out of a relationship" comes with its own challenges, but so does loving a man in spite of himself. And there I was--ready to wait, ready to labor, ready to honor this connection, and you couldn't meet me.
The waves were kissing my toes--ushering me in, yet I was obsessed with your shadow in the distance. I called and called and set text after text pulling you pulling you with strings made of raw spaghetti.
Until I finally had the courage to ask, "Baby, is there anything left?"
Committed to leaving, yet committed to making sure I stayed, you gave silence as a response. And although every star overlooking my ocean weeped as you became a silhouette of a home I will never have, I could finally feel the water right in front of me again.
You never owned it.
This post was originally published on KeyairaKelly.com.