The Bonds We Build and Break

There’s really something special
Between you and him.
Something you can’t touch
And something you can’t so easily see.
It’s a feeling,
An intense and cliché tidal wave.

It’s the searing pain of the pancake burns
And the deafening reverberations of the car fire,
The instinctive, mammalian protectiveness
Of when he used himself as a buffer
Between you and the toxic blaze.

When he catches your eye across the room,
He doesn’t need to smile at you,
Because he knows you’re already feeling better.
He lifts you up to the stratosphere
Where you can hardly breathe.
But it’s okay, because you’re breathless at the sight of him anyway.

Or in the
Pof pof pof snrrrik whooop whoooosh clrrrakk hnnng ptooh!
Of the fight he waged to protect you.
When his knuckles swelled to twice their size
And his knees painted the asphalt burgundy,
His eyes still shined as he pounded defeat into the bricks
And raised victory high above his head for everyone, and you, to see.

He even carried you all the way home,
Not because he had something to prove,
But because you gave him the strength to stagger down the road.

Above all,
There’s one thing that holds you two together.
It’s a cord or a rope.  No,
A bond.

A bond sewn tightly together,
Made up of pinky promises and hours on the phone,
Talking about life and everything and nothing.
Interwoven with bathing in the glow of the television late into the night,
Wrapped up in each other,
And the blankets, too,
Listening to your hearts beat to the same distant symphony.

You’ve shared so much,
So many moments,
That no matter how far apart you are from one another,
That bond won’t break.


I see it.
The bond.

I see it.

It glows,
And shines,
And I shield my eyes.

But then I put down my hand
And let the brightness overtake me.

Because it’s beautiful.
It’s something really special,
Your unbreakable bond.