Alis Volat Propris

I will tell you now what we both already know.

I love you.

It’s not a surprise and the words are such a fucking puny representation of this throbbing ache that tells me I’m missing someone who damn near completes me when he’s actually the man he can be.

Remember when you held that knife to your throat?

I thought we had reached our low a few times. I know about your scars. We both do. And as much as you’d like to keep telling yourself they’re your past, nothing stays buried. Not inside an angry young man.

Your fish guts comment was ugly, but it made me realize you were attention-starved. If you were going to kill yourself, would fish guts really stop you? Would your parents be ashamed only that you used a dirty knife to do the job?

No.

So while you did finally express to me how you felt, you also lost me.

I’m gone.

I will tell you now something we both know.

You love me.

Here, again, is the word “love”. What definition does it align with now? Perhaps we realize how used and ragged it is. Perhaps some would lump it with the former love that we have already touched on. How easy but frighteningly wrong that would be.

Our love is vastly different.

I’m gone.

You think love is holding on to me as hard as you can and never letting me go no matter how miserable either of us are and no matter how clear it may be that one of us may be better off without the other. It is a verdict. You are the judge and jury.

“I love you. You are sentenced to life and will be held in maximum security without parole.”

I love you.

I love you as though you are a child and we are holding hands. We are holding hands walking through a park and you run off every now and again to pet a scruffy mutt or chase a dashing yellow butterfly. I love the way your eyes shine when you smile. I love when you come back to me, sometimes tired or happy or scared. You take my hand again because you like how it feels even thought you’re not sure why.

I’m gone. But I still love you. And you still love me.

Maybe our love is wrong for each other. I certainly do not want the type of love you have to offer. I do want you, though. Which means…what?

What now?

You are trying to change. I pray. You say the right things. Go the right path. I feel painfully assured that one day we can start over again.

Do you remember that night we made love until the sun rose behind the oak tree? Do you, too, remember the smell of wet dirt and crows rejoicing in light?

Were you, even then, slowly and slyly chaining me? Was there nothing we have shared that has not brought me closer to the cell you’ve so beautifully decorated? Do not take me for stupid. As stunning as the views may be, as elegant as the décor may prove, as much as you may dote upon me forever…a jail is still a jail. Shackles still lock and bars do not move.

I love you.

But,

I am free.