tender is not a bad word

how do you forgive yourself when vulnerable has always felt like a terrible thing to be? (and other meditations on tenderness and love)

I was waiting for a cross-town train in the London underground when it struck me / that I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie / so I changed my plans I rented a camera and a van and then I called you / "I need you to pretend that we are in love again" and you agreed to / I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real" / And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd

from Clark Gable by the Postal Service

I once feared my own gentleness. I am trying to teach myself how to be tender again. This is a challenging process, tearing the spines off sea urchins and separating my skin from its hermit-crab shell. My heart developed an ironclad exoskeleton.

Tried so hard to become bone, I forgot I was flesh to begin with.

It’s circular, the same act performed by my heart, over and over again. I teach myself how to be gentle, I open myself up to love. I am hurt, I grow spines and shell and poison-thorns. I teach myself how to be gentle again.

And again, and again, and again.

Life appears one long dress-rehearsal in teaching myself how to be tender despite my urges to turn venomous; to bare my teeth and resemble predators so well I am no longer read as prey.

I can play pretend, and I’ve gotten quite good at echoing the ferocious. Chameleon-mirroring of warning colors. Aposematic coloration. There is poison here. My heart appears all spines from the outside. There is no reason to teach me the difference between venomous and poisonous, for I have always been both.

It’s little more than this: I learned to adapt. It’s the process of evolution. Pain gave me sharp edges. Love gave me keloid scars. I learned how to make my open wound look like sharp teeth.

Still, these are only shadow-games, only cave-struck illuminations on the wall. Pay attention and realize the fault behind. Look close, and you will see those teeth are still my teeth, no matter how hard I pretend that I am fanged and furious. Those claws are still my hands, nails bitten raw down to the bed just as they have always been. Shadow-puppets; false selves. I was only ever playing pretend at being something sharp and cruel.

In all my truth, I have always been a gentle creature with a terribly loud roar. Not overcompensation, just habit. Soft underbelly underneath all this softer skin. It is easier to hurt me than I would like to admit, so I will shift the frame and make myself big and terrifying. Fake teeth and false claws.

I present as a forest fire, but with a second glance, you’ll realize it’s all special effects.

In the hours of the moon, I find myself just as vulnerable as I have ever been. The armor falls with the rest of my clothes. My skin peels back like night-flower petals, baring what’s beneath only in my lonesome. I am only this raw when I am by myself; the only person I have ever been able to offer the entirety of me.

I never meant to be this sharp. The thorns grow on their own accord, defense mechanisms learned from years of exhaustive recovery. The body scars for a reason, and I have always been easily wounded.

Do not mistake me -- I know well to cut and tear when the time comes, but my fundamental nature has never been so violent. I did not turn ferocious without precedent, but still, I ache to be known as bare and raw as I really am. Look closer, and see that I am more than shadows on the wall.

I’d rather love with the claws sheathed, if you’ll let me.  

***

I have spent my life teaching myself that tender is not such a bad way to be. It still feels like a sour word with a sharp nature, but I am beginning to forgive myself for my tenderness.

I am teaching myself how to confess to my truths; conjunction of self with all this vulnerability. The sweetest words have always felt like poison in my mouth. Tender, gentle, emotional, vulnerable, delicate, bare, open.

The root of it rests in emotional. Perhaps it’s the astrological tendencies of the Cancer man but I have always felt the need to make my love smaller. I was always punished for it.

I can admit the nature of my emotions, but I cannot accept them. I have spent years running from the man inside me. Heart on my sleeve; heart stitched in my hands like fingerprints; heart held underneath my tongue, sweetness spoken with every word formed.

Can’t you hear it, the way my heart beats in every word?  

Can you love me for my sharpness but for my rawness, too? Can I be both sea urchin and soft-shell crab? Will you love me nonetheless?

If you are careful, I promise not to cut you.

***

I am learning to confess, so let me turn this page into a chapel. Forgive me for all I am, and perhaps I can begin to forgive myself.

I have nearly always been the person to love first; I get my heart broken easily and terribly, I fall head-over-heels for strangers in the supermarket, the way their hands clasp berry containers and baguettes. I have always felt wounded when I am judged, even when it’s from people I hate. I have deep shame in my vulnerability, for it has always felt like weakness. The way sunlight falls on the angle of a man’s chin makes my heart beat so fast I fear it will climb through the escape hatch of my throat and grow legs. I do not like knowing people dislike me. I want to be friendly to everyone, because I never feel more alive than when I make a stranger smile. I want so deeply to be loved from afar; from silent, anonymous lovers. I have never been good at resisting the sharpness of a pointed glance. I crave acceptance by meaningless strangers. I am hurt so easily it’s embarrassing. I am oh, so tender, and I often feel I bleed if only for the nature of me. I crave storybook love and fairytales – though, perhaps it’s just that I am from a generation propelled by infatuation with the idea of true love. I daydream habitually. My heart still flutters thinking of the boy I adored in high school texting me happy new year; and I still dream about him, his smile, his laugh, his gentle hands and warm presence. I fall in love too fast, and I get my heart broken too easily. I don’t want to install dating apps because I want to be swept off my feet by a stranger. I want cinema-screen love, tidal-wave love, cosmic love, poetry love. I have never been able to make myself small. I love in a way that often terrifies me. I have an idea of love in my head I’m not so sure I’ll ever achieve, but I ache so profound for it I don’t think I’ll ever give up hope. My heart is speared through with sweetness for people who are strange and beautiful. I cry at the end of every movie, even though I usually don’t know why. My affection bleeds through my pores, often so much I fear I might scald to the touch.

Above all, I think I love almost nearly everyone I have ever met.

Can’t you hear it? I love you. I love you. I love you.