Broken rules, broken promises

I broke a rule today.

Not on purpose, I didn't even realize it at first. It was one of those little rules that almost exists only to be broken - that line you cross when you want to be in trouble, but not too much trouble.


I broke a rule today.

Of course it isn't a rule anymore. There haven't been rules for too long. There haven't been rules since I walked out his door, shattered. Since the night, not too long after, that he walked out my door with both of us pretending it wasn't goodbye.

For so long after there was just the hurt that's left behind when love moves on. No room in my heart or mind to dwell on the physical loss. No time to remember how his hand felt tangled in my hair; what his belt sounded like, exploding across my skin; how tightly his arms always wrapped around me after. Only later, once the emotional hurts had begun to heal could I remember, and remembering, begin to yearn.

Even this is new. Not the yearning of a young girl, wishing and waiting for a taste of the forbidden world she has craved as far back as she can remember; full of hope and fantasy, edged with a fluttering nervousness born of stepping off the safe path into the unknown. Nor is it the yearning of a woman who knows her lover's hand as well as her own and fears as well as worships it. Whose nerves tingle not from awaiting the unknown, but from surrendering once again to the brilliant pleasure and pain that can only be had together.

No, this is a bright glimmer of hope and desire, flashing hotly then quickly dimmed by the memories of how sharp and deep that pain can be when the pleasure is snuffed out, when trust is met with broken promises and disregard. This is the yearning of a woman - older and perhaps wiser. Gentle, tentative, the soft glow of her desire fading into the darker shadows of her doubt.

Time does heal. Light and dark war and shift, settling into a new equilibrium, perhaps more cautious and less carefree, but comfortable. Right.

I broke a rule today.

I smiled as I realized that, knowing that next time it will be not a slip of the mind, but because I meant to. Because girls who break rules must pay the price. And despite everything, I still love that price.