Somebody lit the house on fire.
It burns to this day. Even though I have temporarily retreated safely back across state lines. It is a tangible buffer; it keeps us separated. And responsibly distant. Which, considering the severity of the situation, is probably the best possible outcome.
Because I felt that familiar compulsion to jump in. Head first. Consequences be damned. Just like I always do when tangled up in a situation where wounded hearts are on the line.
But at the same time, I don’t want her to jump with me. Only one of us deserves to tumble down these dirty alleyways. Better that it be me—I am expendable. And she is already destined for a different kind of fall.
So I will take the hit.
I have written myself into the corner of our story. It was just the cost of having exposed my soul so recklessly. And for making her that promise. The one I am not sure I will be able to keep. Because I never anticipated the toll that it would take. Or how hard the words would be to chase down. Although admittedly, I should have fucking known better.
But you can’t live your life out loud and not expect someone to occasionally shout back. What she yelled back at me with pretty eyes leaves me scrambling to keep my head above water. And the absence of her leaves me here echoing. Untethered. Like a discarded cliché caught tumbling in a Michigan wind.
I don’t ever remember feeling this disconnected.
I do know that her graffiti stains this city. That was the only downside to sharing my secrets of this flown-over Capital City back in that window before all the tests. Because her presence lingers. The newest ghost in a long line of memory. The one face in a sea of familiar strangers that actually makes me smile.
I catch glimpses of her amidst the chaos of a skeletal downtown; I am forever chasing shadows. Running towards her; running away. Always so much running. The constant scramble of a feral fox. The gentle vagabond creature forever left alone to wonder why the fuck everything he loves has to die.
We have our weekends. And the midweek trips taken in spite of the bitchy flyover weather. Braving barricades and boundaries. Snow squalls and speed traps. Anything to postpone that forever.
I am left grinding out the miles. Filling the space of a shrinking holding pattern. Burning through schedules at an alarming rate. Waiting for something to break before we do. And I’m worried there won’t be enough time. Worst of all, I will forever wonder if she loves me, too.
Those are scary words. I know. Because I said them. Out loud. Fearlessly. Some would wager foolishly. But I prefaced them with the disclaimer that she didn’t need to feel compelled to ever say it back.
I just needed her to know. Because there, in our fox and raven moments, it felt right to say. And I was tired of living wrong while she was busy caught dying too fucking young.
Our conversations are a briefly opened window. But the clicking of a different biological clock is the growing crack in the future. A splinter that festers and undermines. So many different metaphors muddying the clarity of our waters.
We stand atop a terminal cliff, hand in hand. Bound together in the beautiful melancholy of a last journey. So there can’t be even a hint of a nudge. Or the whisper of a push.
I can feel the panic building; I don’t know where to run now. The raging questions stick in my throat when howling my madness at another Mittened night. I feel myself losing the battle of “what ifs.” Everything is slipping away before it even had a chance to stick.
I foolishly trusted the universe that there would be opportunities later to figure out what the fuck it was all about. But we are already running out of time. I am left out of breath; she is left running out of sunsets.
In the unpredictability of her twilight, there remains a single, indisputable certainty. It fucking hurts loving her this much.
And it’s going to hurt even worse when she isn’t here to love.
