Not even a thousand embraces

not even a thousand embraces

you want to talk about forever
like it’s a hotel room you can pay for
one more night
with a shiny credit card
and a grin.

listen…
I’ve loved men the way the city loves rain:
loud, sudden,
and gone by morning
leaving the sidewalks smelling like rust
and cigarettes.

but there’s a bond in my life
that doesn’t bargain
doesn’t flirt
doesn’t need a song on the radio
to make itself real.

my son.

he came to me
small as a first bruise,
eyes wide like two questions
I couldn’t dodge.

and something in my chest
locked into place,
a hard click,
a sacred kind of yes.

no lover can forge a bond
even half as strong
as the one I share with him.

you can call it motherhood,
call it instinct,
call it the last honest thing left
in a world that lies for sport…

but it’s sacred.

it’s altar and oath.
it’s the one fire
I don’t let anyone breathe on
with cheap breath.

you can bring me
a hundred kisses,
a thousand embraces,
hands that know my body
like a thief knows a window,

and still…
none of it outranks
the way his fingers curl around mine
when the night gets too big
for his small ribs.

and hear me:
I’ll disappoint you,
I’ll fail you,
I’ll get quiet and mean
and tired and human…

and yeah, I’ll fuck you
like I’m trying to burn the evidence off my skin,
like I’m daring you to believe in me
for five brutal minutes...

but lie to my child,
I never shall.

because there are lies
you tell a lover
to keep the bed warm
and the morning gentle,

and then there’s that other relationship…
the one that outlives lust,
outlives apologies,
outlives even you.

my son looks at me
like I’m the whole damn sky.
so I don’t hand him storms
wrapped in pretty paper.

I can duck mirrors,
I can rename my hungers,
I can swallow whole paragraphs of myself
and walk around fine.

I can hide from me.
I’ve made an art of it.
but not from him.

he sees past the lipstick of my voice,
past the “I’m fine” I staple to my face…
like trying to hide a split skull
with a band-aid.

I could survive losing a thousand nights…
but I would not survive
losing the meaning of his eyes.

I can love you,
I can want you,
I can let you pull me close
until the world goes blurry…

but don’t mistake the heat
for the holy.

you are a man in my life…
a beautiful trespass,
a sweet wrong,
a hunger with a pulse.

he is my life
learning to walk.

and if you can’t kneel
to that truth,
if you need to be first
in a place where you will never be…
then take your kisses,
take your thousand embraces,
and go.

I’ll stay.
I’ll tell him the truth.
I’ll keep the sacred sacred.

even when I’m lonely.
even when I’m shaking.
even when the city howls
outside the window
like it’s hungry for something
it can’t name.