It is something as large and as overwhelming as a bear.

Being both soft and sharp at once,

having biting teeth and wrapping warmth.

It had a velvet smudge as its initial point of contact;

close, deeply personal, and immediately changing

the temperature and texture of what it broached.
 

Every time it touched with tenderness,

It stirred up visions or perhaps memories flashed

and changed the shape of the thing.

All the feelings of love before were poured into this one

to make it seem the largest one yet,

and its edges were rounded down to manageable climbs.

Although sudden shifts could still flood through

like a splintered kaleidoscope, and bring forth

every unpleasant shape from the past

to now be dealt with.

Shapes and tones akin to childhood disappointments,

current unfinished adult aims.

Every sorrow, every beautifully painful growth,

every thought never said out loud,

all brought to the front.

To let this love sink its teeth into you

would make you dizzy with wonder

and simultaneously fill you with panic

of the fleeting and the uncertainty of the now.

Maybe you would let go more freely

if you were assured it needed you,

If you spotted it tangled up

inside the chest of someone else

and you had to reassure it.

If it was trying to hide itself from you,

knotted up against itself

within the weeds of everyday routine

and commitments.

If it let you feel in command

on the edge of a swaying, breathing,

shared space.

If you locked eyes with the exact feeling,

perhaps it would see you for a moment,

even recognize you,

but then its stare could move past you,

through you, beyond you,

not acknowledging your physicality.

Your brief connection traded for an animal’s desire to live.

It would focus on the horizon past you.

The day to day was a means to an end for survival.

Like an ocean wave,

the weather ever changing.

The shapeshifting of the beast will tell you the awful truth.

It is a bear, or something like that, after all.