My biggest fear…
…is my capacity to love.
Few have seen my heart open.
My sister. Pacer. Friends have gotten glimpses.
I have less fear around them.
Sometimes I feel it as it pounds,
my heart trying to escape through the cracks.
It tries to escape,
but I remind it that it is not safe here in this man-made world.
Most ex-lovers would tell you that I’m guarded.
That I am scared to love.
And they would be correct.
The one thing I am best at?
My ability to hide and protect,
it is only here that I excel.
I am terrified to reveal the expansiveness and depths of my heart,
for fear of the pain that could replace it.
This is the story of my childhood.
Doubting love exists.
Seeing the desperation and hopelessness in my dad’s eyes,
as my mom gave back the Christmas present and later left.
The church told me love had to be earned,
I needed to get rid of my bad to gain entry into heaven.
Conditions.
I, left alone with emotions I wasn’t allowed to show.
And so, I have spent most of my life in pain,
or at least finding ways to numb it or control it.
And even though I know now that
it is my fear of Love that has caused my pain,
that has separated me from others,
separated me from myself,
separated me from Love,
I still don’t know how to overcome it.
People will leave of die.
I swear if Pacer departs before me,
I may not make it much longer with out Her.
Boyfriends won’t stay because I’m
either too much or not enough.
At least these are the lies I tell myself
to keep me feeling safe-
I disconnect from what I truly want.
Anxiety lives in the push-pull of my heart.
My older sister’s transition broke and exposed me
to a part of me that I thought I had lost.
The part of me that is neither here nor there
but everywhere,
loving even after death.
What I truly want?
To love so openly,
so carelessly,
so deeply and so freely,
that I cry not in the fear of losing,
but I laugh in the beauty of it all.
To, in the fierceness of my wild heart,
let you know,
let myself know,
let the world know,
that I love You,
and allow your Love in return.
A Dog and Her Girl 
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