hallelujah

i can't teach you how to love.
but i can teach you to love me.

i sing to myself, flipping through magazines, headphones on, my own voice louder than the music in my ears, tearing out pages because all that seems simple to me is clothing and all i care about is the skin beneath it.

(i learned to kiss by occasionally opening my mouth and holding my breath.)

i say the word "hallelujah" and tears come to my eyes. i cannot explain it but almost everything worth saying cannot be verbalized.

the verbalization, though, has only a fraction of the importance of the realization.


i always thought love was stitching up those wounds that the other had spent years staring at. now i know that love is finding someone to throw mirrors on the floor with, someone who will walk with you under a ladder, who laughs the entire time.

someone who takes the pain pills away from you.
who doesn't cover their ears when you yell.
who warms your cold hands.
who listens to you talk about conjugating verbs as if grammar will make a difference when you're short of breath or when you're kissing them or when you can't let the tears out fast enough.

(i never knew how good it was to play those keys till i broke my fingers and my wrists ached.
i make a habit of dancing whenever i can, of looking at flowers even if i don't stop to smell them.)

i have never wanted someone to take care of me--only someone who wanted to.


let it be the mission of your heart to break itself once hardened, to bandage the cuts, to shout at the sky once muted, to find god once blinded, to learn everyone's language, to pray after you've lost your faith, to sing over the music in your ears.

i have always thought that singing any way but strongly was not singing at all.

i have always known that love was never the answer.

it was just always the reason.




hallelujah.