Breathing "I Love You"s...

I'm in the room where sleep should be had,
but instead pacing and cursing and
sadness is clinging to the walls,
putrid emotional wallpaper held on by tacks
of self-doubts and self-anger and self-denial -

I hear the words leaving my mouth, and I
watch as they float across the room,
hijackers of emotional terrorism
stealing and flying planes of feelings
into the pillars within your soul, the
light fading from your eyes as I see
the doubt fire from my lips to pierce your heart -

You're out of the room, having left to
do self-triage on the wound that bottled alcohol
and bottled anxiety and bottled depression caused,
You're out of the room where you felt a second emotion against
love from my lips, where you watched me fall apart,
where you saw my inner most bare beast and even then,
you let your fear go, and you held on as I tore through my
worst mistakes and fears like thin sheets in the wind,
you wouldn't let me go...
and I dared your heart to a competition,
to see if it knew what I really was like on the
inside, and you called my bluff -

You left the room, because even in my most un-sober moment,
I twirled further into the ball of doubt and anxiety
that I wound with each new breath,
and you left the room,
to take everything all said
and done and cried and lied about;
into context.
You don't care that I find myself some days
sinking ever deeper,
ever farther down into the insanity that
plagues my family -
you don't care about any of that.

You tell me that no matter how far I fall, how long I sink,
how deep I go into my own darkness that seems to never leave me -
you tell me that no matter what,
you'll never leave me,
that you will be there to catch me when I fall,
to pull me back up from the bottom of the drink,
to bring the light into my life with every touch
and laugh and brush of your lips on mine.
You see me at my worst, hold up a mirror, and say,

"See, even now, you're the most beautiful beast,
so don't let your tears stain your scars
and don't let your fears cloud the bright skies in your mind.
Let everything go, and let the warmth grow,
because with every breath you breathe,
you have to relearn to un-clench your fist,
and let your failures and fears go.
This won't be easy, and it won't be undemanding,
but with every breath in, you call out my name,
and with every breath out,

you breathe an 'I love you'."