torture that we choose

healing we run from

I know your story from beginning to end.

Too bad you aren’t here to see the continuation of mine…

Can it even be called a continuation without you in it?

Does it even count?

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Am I so hellbent on holding the memory of you that I cannot the thought of being without you?

And at this point, can it be called grief or is it blind hope that I am still loved?

Sitting in the corner of my bed, wrapped in your coat, and staring at the wall does nothing for me. I know it doesn’t.

Wallowing in your absence has never been a productive use of my time and we both know it to be true.

You would argue a fair case against the way I should be living, if you could. You would tell me to eat and go for walks, and you would tell me to keep writing. And I’ve only been doing one of those things.

I know that none of what I do would make you proud.

I know it to be true.

I quit anything law-related after you.

I never did debate or state rally again. I never played chess, but I bought a new set just to set it up and stare at the pieces and try to think about people the way you did before me.

It never worked.

I know for a fact that it only hurts me. That trying to make it a bit smaller than what it was, that trying to ease the pain the best I can, really and truly leads nowhere.

I know you would make this huge thing of me not singing anymore. You would freak out if you knew that sometimes I stared at a coming car and considered leaving a world that you lived in.

But going through the grueling process of leaving you to rest in my past seems far too hard compared to clinging to your memory now.

perhaps if I could find comfort in something else, if I could claw my way out of the grave I wish you laid in, clinging to the sensation of your hand in mine and the way you said my name, then I would live.

But the suffering that comes with feeling you is better than the relief I could feel if I buried you where you belonged.

And you knew how much I loved you and left me with it welled up in my throat.

now what else can I do other than sob?

What else can I do other than try to tear the pain from my own throat and drag myself to wallow in my own sorrow while I still can?

And what happens when the truly terrifying thing ends up being that one day you may just be a memory. You’ll be a nice coat and everything I wanted but what I never got? What if someone turns you into a story they tell at a party as opposed to something truly precious that they no longer have?

And what of our future? What of August and Eleanor and everything that we wanted to have? Do I just have to bury that whenever it was all I wanted for a year?

And how do I get rid of the guilt of loving someone else? If I buried it in your place, would I find what I’ve always wanted? Reprieve? peace?

Is that how I’m supposed to look at it? getting rid of the guilt of loving someone else and then living freely?

Which do I choose?

Being a slave to your memory

or the killer of one of the only people I’ve ever loved myself?

Perhaps this is simply what I choose.
I’ve always been good at running.

Maybe I chose to finally put my skills to use and

run from the healing that would lead me to lose you?

Perhaps because it’s more comfortable.

Maybe I stick with the torture I was always meant to choose…

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