Would you understand me if I told you I am made of lava?

Do you know what it feels like to hold a seizing dog? Time goes by so slow; it feels like an hour. When your body is wrapped around her you begin to twitch with her. You twitch with her and feel the tension in her every muscle. You feel the drool. Or is it you crying? It hits your arm in progressively faster drips. You hear her nails scrape against the hardwood floor.

Do you know what a tick feels like when burrowed into your skin? You can’t feel it at first; their saliva releases chemicals to stop bleeding and numb pain. You can’t feel it until you pull it out with your mom’s tweezers. Then, for weeks after, you feel them all over you when you are about to fall asleep.

Have you ever loved somebody in the wrong way? You sit on your back porch and tell yourself that willpower can win over emotions. You think maybe you will actually love them like you said you did on that old, cigarette-burned couch, if you just try harder.

Do you know how long it takes you to admit to yourself that you can’t force it? And how much longer it takes to admit it to them? Being honest creates a hole, like a cigarette put out on an innocent couch.

Would you understand me if I told you I am made of lava? If I listen hard enough with my ear against the pillow I can hear it flowing. Can you not hear it too? You always tell me I feel warm, but I am scorching, slow-moving, flesh-melting. I have felt it harden into jet black stone and I have heated it up again on my own.

You do not know what it’s like to feel that dripping, to sense the legs crawling, to swallow your aching guilt, to hear that slam, to feel yourself stop flowing.

So, when you tell me that there is a softness to my movement, know that that any softness has been fought for and earned. Know that I had to harden first. Know that softness is nothing less than a triumph.