Me, Undone

This passes. The pain of letting go. Resignation so that something cosmicly created can enter. In the meantime, I will fill this void with light source and Nina Simone. Please don't let me be misunderstood.

We inadvertently saw a movie about fate, love, and magic. Or maybe it wasn't so inadvertent after all. It happened. After 90 minutes, I walked her out to her car, declined our scheduled dinner, and said goodbye. Tears burning hot down my face on the drive home. In the hours after, she sent messages in the sky. Searching for holes along my spinal chord. Biting down in me in hopes of a response. I turned away. But there are still moments when I crave her.  Feverishly trying to wash her scent out of my hair. We are a destructive pairing. She plays victim like a prodigy. Swallowing notes and chords whole. I am always the perpetrator.  She hands me her gun fully loaded. In another life, she met me fully woman. Washed of previous hurts, cleansed of desperation, and devoid of deceit. But not here. Not now. And I hate her for it. I will never not think of her.

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 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.

I’ve been saying goodbye to lots of things lately. Some not by choice, others out of necessity. I’ve seen you from time to time since. You rush to me with warm smiles and soft arms. Always sad eyes though. Sad eyes as you feed me a lifetime of information in a glance. You ask me if the number is still the same. Yes, I always say. It hasn’t changed. But everything has. We have splintered indeed. Our lives indefinitely forked. You keep your distance… How foolish of me to believe our connection existentially transcendent. It is the same as every other before. Normal. Recycled. How profoundly sad. If I shall pass you in the street, in two months, or two years--catch a familiar scent, sound-- Will my fibers still remember you? You are clairvoyant. You know that dream you had about my death—it has come.