you ever

cut your finger

swear allegiance

and put it

together

to make

blood sisters

a promise

in all

seriousness

that can never be

broken

you ever

look back

at that

and wonder

what happened

to our pact

the blood stains

that remain

intact

He lived with me.

I made him promise me to be with me. And he fulfilled it.

It's just that now I realised that

"Living with someone and loving someone are literally not the same things."

I guess love is like a luxury which is not in my destiny.

"Never," I say.

"Never?" she asks, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Never," I reply, bending double to look her in the eyes. "I will never leave you, love."

She smiles and saunters off across the playground. I sit back down upon the bench. Her fear when she couldn't find me was visceral. The same as mine would have been, had she been the one out of sight.

I will never leave you.

The things we say to our children. The promises we make, knowing they cannot be kept. Knowing they are no less true, when broken.

She holds my heart in the palm of her hand.

Never could I, ever, leave you.