so this is what it's like to have a heart

he's spent the last month trying to pry the cork from the spiritual and emotional bottle i keep. with every drop that he freed, he would say we were getting somewhere and it was nice to see that side. he didn't even know all the progress i was making. all the things i was fixing. i didn't tell him because i wasn't changing for him, but because of him. because of his example and his faith in me.

last night he pulled it out. only it wasn't a bottle afterall. it was a dam. and the cork was the stone plugging the crack. so i spilled out all over his shoulder in the middle of a dark parking lot where he told me how sorry he was, and he never meant to hurt me, and how he would rather be shot in the stomach than see me cry. but once i started i couldn't stop. i sobbed in his arms harder than i ever have in front of a man who wasn't my dad. and i didn't mind that he knew i was broken. he always knew i wasn't as tough as i pretended to be.

he cried too, a little. he said it doesn't mean he doesn't adore me. and he would still do anything for me. and it's so late, why don't i crash at his house, and he'll go somewhere else. and he looked like i really did shoot him in the stomach.

he made me promise to call when i got home safe because i wouldn't let him follow me. before he walked away he touched my face, shook his head and said 'you're so beautiful, even when you cry'. and just like the first time he told me, and unlike anyone else who has, i believed he really meant it. so i crumbled a little more.

and today i have flooded my house, this keyboard, and my friend's voicemail hoping that the river will spread out and settle even a little. it's going to take awhile. that was a really big dam.