The Door was Better Closed

Shall we walk this path once more? Should we open this door again?

It was nice, to have and to hold, to share what was mine with you. Its like you weren't another person, another entity, like a piece of my heart that slightly escaped in the furnace of creation. You were as much me as I was you, and we walked this path as one. Conquering the challenges as life presented them, with a smile emblazoned on both our faces. Love seemed like a simple, almost ineffective word as what I felt couldn't be matched by a language constructed by man, but a word crafted by the mind of gods.

I still had the snapshot of our life, framed on a rusty nail in my soul. The memories came and went like a drifter in the night, plaguing my sleep so. The dreams and nightmares faded into each other with little warning, my heart rocked as if the sea were angry with it, and my body could barely hold the love and pain in the same vessel. Yet every time, every single time you came to my door after you left, I let you in.

You returned to your seasonal home, and I always welcomed you. I didn't protest, I didn't ask where you were. I was only happy you returned. Yet each time you came back, you returned with more of me left somewhere else. Its not that i didn't want to take care of you, but I became a caretaker more than a lover. I fed you when you were hungry, I cleaned you up when you came home hurt. I was your bandage that you removed when you no longer needed me. Why do we love what we use and use what we love?

When you left last, I borrowed your pain and ran it through my veins. You vampired your suffering into my life and I bore it, so you could walk away and start again. I tried to forget and to dull my feeling, but it made it more permanent. You never came on a schedule, no regularity, no habit. Like the beautiful chaos i loved you for. But I sensed you were near. That any day you would return. The hair on my neck stood at full attention, my chest felt shallow and deep at the same time. I listened without relent. for the knock that would come at my door.

It pierced the night as it normally would. It shattered my silent sleep and I had abandoned my wits. I jumped from bed and rushed to my door, knowing you were on the other side. You offered your apologies, you just want to talk, I'm sure you were hungry and tired too. But the months and years of this took its toll on both of us I'm sure. I stopped sleeping, my health took a nose dive, and my head hasn't been on right since. I'm trying to fix me, but I can't fix you too. We were the matches that ignited the madness in each other's hearts, and turned men and women into the monsters we feared.

Without looking through my peephole, without asking who it was, we both knew what was about to happen. I took the longest walk of my life back to bed and I sheltered myself under the covers as my door was battered by your fists and screams. I knew my door would not be breached, but it was attacked with such ferocity. I surrendered myself to sleep and the door grew silent. Lets not fall in love this time, lets just try that.

a