This is for you.
I know it is things
but they are yours
and I want to say 'thank you'.

When I think of you,
I lay in the sun along the Berlin Wall,
close my eyes with my head on your legs,
fall asleep in your jeans and safety.

I know we have been a lot.
I never meant to diminish that.

You saw me and loved me gently,
I am grateful for that.
You loved me demandingly,
I am fearful of that.

Today I walked past the neighborhood where we lived in Berlin,
sat in the park and on the playground next to our door,
walked to the red church and the corner fence full of clothes.
Smelled the time when there was so much possibility,
thought of the live never lived
and that I weirdly try to fill
avoidant of the spaces we shared.

I am sad for things to end.
I am proud of standing up for myself and my boundaries.
I am a child that misses laying in the grass with you
and floating underwater.
I am a lover that is hurt.
I am warm in the sun
on your legs
between water and walls.

I wish you radical gentleness
and a life filled with adventure.

- Lini

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