As One Terrified

She sits with him. She smiles. She laughs. She stares at the wall. Her hands fidget and she tucks her knees against herself as a barrier. Yet, she invades his space, closing the gap. What she wants more than anything, and what she fears more than anything, is a healthy relationship. How terrifying it is to be loved!

Her eyes implore of him, "love me" and then, "do not dare come that close."

Her mouth is pouty and playful as the words that leave it cut him. Her eyes take in the damage and she longs for returned abuse while hoping against hope that it will not come. It does not come. His hurt lingers and her shame grows. Yet she does not stop.

He stands with kind eyes while buffeted, knowing it will cease while puzzled by its source. She will not tell. She grows uneasy with his insistence on loving her. She does not know love. It is uncomfortable. She knows pain. She knows what to do with pain.

She grows nervous that he might win and that she might have to change, to change into someone who loves. She flinches at the thought that she might be the abuser, that she might not have justification for her anger. His affections accuse and spare her, and this is too much.

"Wound me and you may have me," says a voice somewhere inside her and her breath is bated and curves accentuated. Some days he is tempted.

"Pull me to a safe place to love you," says another. He hears this voice, too, and with it he hopes against hope.

He does not understand her refusal to drink of the water he offers, and yet he stays there, hands extended. Patient. Kind. Wise. King. He will offer until she accepts or until she famishes at the dry cistern she knows so well.