An Envisioned Stranger

Excuse the rawness of this account.
When I don't understand something, I tell it
As a story to an envisioned stranger.
A sequential, linear narrative.

Munching on a steady diet of "happy couple" tropes and Disney marriages,
You grow up thinking fighting is a bad thing,
Avoid arguments with partners,
Float through the ocean of your relationship clinging to the driftwood of your similarities,
Not realizing that opposing global perspectives are a survival mechanism
And that disagreement is a resource.
Worrying "What if we refer to the living room by different names and confuse the kids?"

Cutting someone down is actually just a reversal of empathy:
If you know what hurts you, you know what hurts her.
And suddenly the nastiest fights are the ones that follow the deepest
And most intimate understanding of each other,
Strangely from a place of love.

Assumed agreement sans communication is a silent
Gripping, manipulative, depression
On a relationship.
Even in its inherent separation,
Disagreement breeds common ground and
Sunlight streams through an open window.

A Constant Bereavement

She makes me feel sticky on the inside,

That California Red Wood of a 2nd floor employee.

Equal parts reason and emotion, bone and muscle, concrete and windchime.

The thoughts floating through her salt-water cochlear fluid contain biodiversity of oceanic proportion,

Equal parts monster and hero, demon and champion, cancer and elixir.

The Law of Conservation states

That if her skull were to splinter, spilling all these wonders onto the grass,

Like egg yolk,

The very atmosphere would 

Taste sweeter, appear brighter

For a moment

As object fails and essence takes hold.

Simultaneously finding myself

Celebrating and then grieving

Each passing second,

Our time together is a constant bereavement.