Me, Undone

Something gives way when you realize you can no longer return. A general malaise. Like the burning of leaves. I feel this for you when I catch you alone. I remember, still, love for you. And perhaps I always will. How do I measure what is lost? It burgeons wide and vast--pulsing, expanding, filling my lungs until I can barely breathe. The chrysalis must first die before the butterfly can begin. But no one ever remembers the sacrifice.

I am not fond of physical limitations. Those pesky little things called barriers--sudden closings and the narrowing of opportunity. I am trapped in a cage with an angry lover. It's bloody battle royale. I am no victim. I did the crime. The punishment is deserved. But that does not stop the horror when faces turn inside out--when laughter disintegrates in to bitter chiding--when touch once so pure and sweet, now reaches out to inflict pain. The consequences have been far too much for me to contemplate. I am shocked and awed. Badly bruised this time. My heart scars a physical manifestation of her blind and uncontrollable rage. This is how she keeps me here, my dear. This is how she keeps me here, I fear.

I am outgrowing her. Fast and furious. Trying to slow down. She is in the distance. I grew tired of holding her up to the light. My arms gave way. She is tumbling down to earth. My heart blown open again. I imagine her lying there bruised and bloodied. Everything in me begs to go to her. Pick her up from the floor of the earth and stroke her scalp. But descent to earth means forfeiture of flight. The slow and bitter atrophy of full grown wings. I risk capture. Engulfed by the trickery of the ordinary. The veil of comfort. The curse of the unfulfilled.