With You There’s Not A Night I Don’t Feel Whole

You came into my life at a strange time. I was freshly free, wide eyed and wired. I met you at a party, under thick clouds of smoke, dim lights, and blaring music. It was too loud to speak, but your eyes had a flame in them, a danger I knew I should walk away from, but I couldn’t.

And that’s how it started. Innocently at first, but before long you wanted me entirely, and I declined. I couldn’t see the good in a man in the state I was in. Still I was hungry for you.

I tried to resist it, or so I’d say out loud, but you could always convince me to see you, especially after late weekend nights when things got a little hazy. You made me feel like I was the air your lungs needed to catch their breath, yet I still denied you. I should have stopped it then, but still I was hungry.

It wasn’t long before sweet words turned into rageful yelling, furniture flying past my head, and praying the elevator doors would close before you caught up to me, I still regret letting you see my fear.

I felt disgusted for letting it happen, but deep down I think I needed you to prove to myself that men were awful, because after 5 years in a prison of a relationship, I’d cling to any excuse to never be in one again, but time would go on and the hunger would come back.

You would worship me, but your range continued, until one night I needed to call for help, and my friend came and got me, and I had to spill everything. Soon enough all my friends hated you, and yours hated me, and Friday nights downtown became a war zone. You’d scream at me across the bar, and your friends would hold my friends back from you, you said awful things.

Still I’d sneak out to meet you. Why was I hungry for something, when tasting it always made me feel so sick?

I knew I had to slow it down. I spent more time in, more time with my friends, one in particular. He was the friend who picked me up that night, who may or may not have saved me from a much worse fate. He was quiet, but had a laugh that gave you permission to at least momentarily forget about any of your hurt. Slowly we got closer, and my relapses from the poison, became fewer and farther in between.

Getting to know you wasn’t granted, and I so savored every piece of you you’d slowly give up to me. The nights we’d watch dumb videos in your bed and laugh till we cried was something so foreign to me.

We would talk for hours until I’d fall asleep in your bed, after that there were few nights I didn’t spend there, and though I fought myself every step of the way, trusting you came so easily.

You taught me that safety is not a privilege, but a right, and that angry fist, don’t make a man, but rather the courage to speak gently even when my words tried your patients.

You didn’t constantly shower me with unrealistically inflated compliments to make me feel wildly desirable, so I learned to feel desirable all on my own.

Three years later, we live with each other, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the light you’ve brought into my life. The laughter we share lifts me and with each day makes the memories of a painful past more distant. With you there’s not a night I still feel hungry, because with you, there’s not a night I don’t feel full, or whole.