1This is the most painful thing I've ever written, ever.
But it's given me closure.
Forgive any confusion you might suffer while reading this. It's rather emotional on my part. I did my best to convey it the best I could.
Disclaimer: I own this in its absolute entirety. So, really, don't even think about stealing it. I don't own the song though. It just served as background music.
"Well I won't pretend to lie,
Once more protect my blinded sight."
- Saferwaters by Chevelle
I don't recognize you.
In the months we've been apart, something has changed, shifted, twisted about you. That smile - that familiar, beautiful quirky upturn of your lips has vanished; there's no trace of it anywhere.
I know you feel my eyes on you, because I can see you stiffen, shoulders silently splaying back and turning rigid. Do you remember when we were fluid? Dancing around each other in spins and swirls of emotions I dare not to name? Because names give weight to things I choose to keep locked, deep, dwelling inside me.
The things you have exiled from your person, banished, regretted.
"What are you doing here?"
Your voice is still deep, resounding, threatening to break me into even smaller pieces. The familiarity of it makes me cringe. I've never seen such hostility in you, never heard such a shake of animosity.
I have no answer for you.
This is not the coincidence you had hoped for.
This is not the reunion I had prayed for.
Silence is my comrade, careful to keep my voice tight against my ribcage, trapped by the chains that you so unknowingly secured around me. I swear with a flick of your wrist I could be sent tumbling towards you, plummeting back into the dark of your eyes and the swell of your chest. That's how obedient I am to you, how powerless I am to the control you have on me.
You played me for a fool.
And I turned gladly into one.
I want to turn the blinders on, to suffocate myself with the golden-blood sash you had secured around my eyes when we were us. Nothing else mattered then. Nothing mattered but the sight, the sound, and the touch of you. A touch without skin, a graze that turned everything good inside me to dust when it was gone.
You got past my defenses and up my ribcage, fingering my heart just below the iron-plated breast bone I had melted in place.
I was untouchable until you touched me.
I was unbreakable until you shattered me.
And there you are, standing mere feet away with your back to me. Your shoulders are wide, proud. I can see that you're shaking, trembling really.
Fleetingly, I glance at my hands, overlooking the proud paper-bound novel that rests between my fingers.
I'm shivering too.
I feel the tug of your chain on my throat, nudging my attention to the sudden profile of you, half-shadowed, glaring at me. I don't meet your eye even as the tug yanks harder. I'm breathless and winded, but I refuse to seem beaten.
You will not give me sympathy.
Because the hands at your sides aren't open, palm up, offering.
They're fists.
"You'll never get it, will you?"
Your question is stretched, wire-thin, against my echoing, pounding ears. I'd rather assume I misheard the tone of your voice than suggest to myself that you're unhappy, disappointed in me.
"You're never going to fucking take the hint, are you?"
I imagine you're shaking your head now, ready to spit the exact meaning of your clue in my face. But I can't find the strength to look at you. All the confidence I had walking in here you have drawn from me, the skinless touch I still feel in the deepest part of me clutching, fingering, squeezing every last ounce of bravery from this broken shell you used to love so well.
I bet you're ashamed of my tragedy.
To think, you cherished a fool like me.
So unworthy.
I've masked the breakdown so well, so well to everybody but you. You, who saw the real me even when I withheld words, withheld promises, withheld trust. You, who knew, who knew.
I knew you too, better than I've known anyone. I didn't know much about your life before me, but I didn't matter, because I knew you. The real you.
But, I can't seem to recognize you anymore.
You were always strong, but now it seems like you're a barricade; protecting, defending something that means more to you then yourself. When did you find that? That strength that I always knew was there, brimming, somewhere inside of you?
Was it lost when we were us?
Is that why you could never defend me?
Protect me?
Even from myself?
"I said I wanted you gone."
The statement is brief, but it's enough to feel like a punch in the gut. My knees wobbled, threatening, for a moment, to knock me off balance. But my comrade, silence, struck me straight.
"Show no weakness," it whispered, heavily upon my ear.
The irony.
You shift your weight, waiting for a retort from my direction. I used to be so good at arguing with you. It was my defense, my attempt to push you away and out of my chest, away from my heart, away from my soul. Fear's grip on me had been stronger then, the demon with lead eyes always sung such ugly things about you to me. He didn't see you the way I did.
How could I be so unmanageable? So ungrateful? So mislead?
The quiet is broken with your angry whisper.
"This is what you wanted."
Not even my comrade can stop the gasp that filters through my lips when I inhale.
"And I love her."
Your talking about the other one, the one you've grown to defend, the one who made your half-smile turn into a full-on grin. You're talking about the one who makes you laugh, the one who fought for you, the one who loved you better than I ever could have.
She's the reason I can't recognize you anymore.
I feel your chains slowly slip the noose away and over my head.
Letting go…
I want to cry out at their absence, to demand you replace them, that you keep your hold, everlasting, painful on me. Don't you know it's only with them that I can feel?
But you make no attempt to coo me, to beguile their existence back burning into my skin. Not that you would need to swoon me back into your restraints. I would gladly hold out my wrists and surrender to your entrapment again.
If only it would bring back the fondness of your sway.
If only it would bring me back into your sight.
You offered me everything once.
I feel so vulnerable, so open, so out of control. I hate that you're still glaring at me, arms crossed over your chest, cutting me off from the steady thrum of your heart. It's like knocking all the oxygen out of the sky.
I spin, dizzily, in circles in my head.
I'm off tempo.
This is killing me.
I want to look at you so badly, to try and find reasoning in your face. But the sudden tap, tap, tap of your shoes on the floor make me so timid I can't even blink. When I see your knees come into the line of my vision, I almost collapse right there.
I have had nightmares about this before. Watching you come back so close to me, only to twist into the demon of Fear I know so well. Black, bloody lips screaming profanity and hating every ounce of me, razor-sharp teeth chewing and spitting me into physical pieces on the floor. I close my eyes and sway for a long, endless moment. Sickening waves of such deja-vu rip through me, making me feel so ill I could just dissolve into a pool of ooze.
My comrade, without your chains, slinks through the shadows of the room and out the front door.
Forsaken.
Alone.
My voice, so out of tune, rusty from the lack of words I've spoke, flutters at the base of my throat in time with the lingering beat of my heart. I haven't felt it for so long, desired for it. If only, if only I could make you understand.
Make you see that I see my mistake.
Make you breathe in my breath and all the pain in it.
Make you love me again.
My breath hitches at the feel of your hands on me, cupping my jaw in opposite hands and I force myself not to flinch away. Your palms are fiery warm on my chin, fingers cooler on my cheeks. Your touch is so soft, so loving, I'm fighting back tears. Maybe, maybe I had imagined all the anger in your voice and stance. Maybe, just maybe, the demon of Fear splayed the illusion of your hatred in my mind to keep me from this glorious, beautiful hope that is blossoming in me.
That must be it.
That has to be it.
Your hands skid down my neck, thumbs caressing the sensitive underside of my throat all the way down to hollow.
I can recognize you now.
I remember this, the faintest touches I allowed you to have on me. I had always inhibited you from going any farther, getting any more intimate, below the black borderline I penned across myself. You were always so understanding, so light-hearted, laughable, even when you slipped past the ink and I would immediately freeze up, only to melt and shove you away.
You understood the scars I wore less than proudly beneath my skin.
And you once loved me despite them.
Your palms are on my clavicles now, fingers shifting slightly over my shoulders. You're so light against me, like either I'm hurting you or you're afraid of hurting me. I imagine you pulling me to you, whispering words of forgiveness to my temple, every molecule in your body crying out, screaming for me.
I hush the urge to close the distance between us.
I wait, in limbo, for endless moments with your breath on my hairline. I keep my eyes closed, trying so hard to keep it together. I want more than anything to drop of my knees and surrender, to swear that I'll never make the mistake again.
I would kiss the backs of your hands like a commoner to a king, swearing loyalty and a lifetime of service.
You are all I have.
All I've wanted.
All I need.
Your grip on me suddenly tightens. Shocked, I blink and glance up at you. Daring, gambling, to meet your gaze for the first time since the fall out.
I freeze, watching the cold gun-powder color of the demon's eyes flit across the warm hue of brown of your irises. There isn't a single note of love on your face. No hint of kindness, no trace of forgiveness.
Suddenly, I'm reeling backwards from the force of your push on my shoulders. The paper bound novel that once rested in my hands falls lifelessly to the floor. I crash backwards into the open door frame of your office, color flooding my vision. I know I didn't hit my head. But the impact of your rejection makes me see stars.
"Get out of here," you tell me, deep voice shaking visibly in the air. I swear I can see the red mist of your demand flutter in the space just in front of you. But when my vision clears, there's nothing but tension between us.
I feel a tear roll down my cheek, that itchy burning in the back of my nose. My voice pushes higher into my throat, swelling just behind my tongue.
I want to scream.
I want to yell.
I want to make you hurt like me.
But instead, my voice rolls inside my mouth and through chapped lips. It's cracked, fractured the way I am every inch inside, but I feel it's tone does the words justice.
"The dedication."
Only two words.
I find the strength to nod off the paper bound novel lying alone on the floor.
Twisting, I turn out the door and flee down the hallway and past your secretary. I feel her startled gaze on my shoulders, but I brush it off as tears fall freely down my cheeks. I initially go for the elevator, but then nearly trip over myself as I turn and bound for the stairwell door.
I run down at least fifteen flights before I stop and collapse at the landing, huddling myself into the corner and pulling my knees to my chest, biting hard down on my lower lip to keep myself from sobbing.
The pull in my heart is completely gone now, leaving me to feel strangely hollow. You have been removed from me, torn away forever. I've mourned the loss of you for so long that it doesn't hurt as much as it probably should, but that doesn't stop me from reliving it all over again.
I knew when I walked in here I would be walking out alone. But, I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I had fantasized too often with the imaginary you I concocted in my head. The you of months ago. The you who would do anything for me. The you who loved me. I had half-beguiled myself into thinking that we weren't over. That you were using the other woman as a ploy to get me back. That you still thought fondly of me.
I feel the scorch of those naïve thoughts licking the inside of my chest, burning a hole right through the emptiness in me.
And though it hurt, ached so fiercely that I actually fisted my shirt in my hands against the origin of the pain, I felt joy explode somewhere deep inside of me. It flickered, like a beacon, for a few moments before sputtering out, resting like ashes in a pile, awaiting - but never dead.
It was the first thing I felt without you.
Despite myself, I felt a smile cross my lips as my buried my face in my knees and yet out a half sob, half laugh.
Forgiveness.
I imagine you kneeling to the ground and opening the novel now.
I imagine the surprise on your face when you see there's no title, no picture, no hint to what may lie inside the thick binding of pages.
I imagine you opening the cover, fingering past two blank sheets of white until your gaze catches the sight of black, handwritten ink on the third page.
I imagine you reading my penned dedication.
You served as my greatest inspiration;
My greatest heartache,
My greatest failure.
But these are the last words I'll ever waste on you.
And I don't imagine you anymore.