For my wife...
When I said,
"Let's leave the world
you and I know,"
you didn't complain,
though I couldn't explain
the journey we were starting.
Instead of listening
to your doubts and fears,
you gave me your trust.
When I insisted
that love was more complex
than the single-minded focus
on one other being,
though you didn't understand,
it wasn't how you planned.
By my side you still stayed.
When every cell
cried out to you to say farewell,
you chose the harder path.
You picked the eye
of a savage hurricane
of paradoxical passion,
and believed in our love.
Now, looking back,
I see the heights we've climbed,
and realize without you
I'd have fallen far behind.
Because you stayed,
you gave,
you loved,
I soar to the heights.
In the morning light,
I see you beside me,
restless in pain-wracked sleep,
besieged by demons in dreams.
I know your doubts,
all of your fears
that you aren't good enough,
that my attributes
are somehow your fault.
But through all the years,
all the trials, grief, and loss,
I'd see you there,
steadfast and holding on,
and fanning the love
within my breast
by being better than I deserve.
And the love for you
is there always,
it has never died,
and it never will.
If there is fault
to be found,
it is that I
am the flawed, corrupted vessel
incapable of the expression
of exactly how much
you mean to me,
for without you,
I would not be.
(c) Tortured Cyclone 2016
For my wife.
Two people,
their worlds combined,
even with other loves
that become aligned,
still the reality
of all that is
for the truth lies within.
The others have a flirtation,
a romance drifting free,
while you and I
have something more,
even if sometimes it lacks
that sheer elemental rush
of the lovers waltz,
because they have a page
a chapter in this story,
but you and I have a world,
made of pain and joy,
loss and longing.
They are a portion,
we are the world.
(c) Tortured Cyclone 2015
