I can see the thoughts sparking around in your head.

For you, I’m within reach.

For me, you are too close.

I can’t breathe with your thoughts in front of me.

Your desires are too close.

But you will forever deny them for the sake of safety.

And I cannot stand it.

I cannot stand you.

The big pile of want and never will be is between us.

Like being near a live wire, it is dangerous and alluring. 

We can’t touch each other but are still too close.

Close enough to catch fire and be burned.

You were my favorite. I hoped you would stay.

That you would let me keep loving you.

I wish this time you were my reward for a lifetime of caregiving.

Mine to keep as a gift for teaching so many men how to accept love.

I wish you were staying instead of leaving and taking with you the magic I showed you.

But here I am again, alone and starting over.

I remember sitting next to you, holding your hand, during a moment of calm after the storm.

I quietly asked you why? 

Why do you hit me? Why are you so cruel?

I remember you cried and said you were sorry.

You gave me a list of excuses for your rage.

Some of them were even about me.

But it was never really about me.

What you didn’t say was you were sad and sacred. 

That I was an easy target for all the hurt inside you because I was trapped. And I loved you.

I loved you, in good times and in bad.

There was more to our story than the times you left me crying in the corner, bruised and battered.

We did laugh We had fun. Sometimes.

But mostly, I lived in a state of terror, just waiting for the next time you lost control.

You took everything and left me with nothing.

You harmed me in ways I am still discovering. 

Time has passed since I left.

I am no longer in a constant state of hypervigilance. I no longer dread you walking through the door, and I no longer worry that anything I say could release an onslaught of anger from you and send me reeling, bloodied by your words or your fists.

Because you are no longer there.

But fifteen years was a long time to live with your abuse.

I still find myself in that place from time to time.

And I will forever be trying to heal the brokenness.

What will become of them when I am gone?

All the love and passion that poured out of me put on paper.

The inner workings of my heart expressed through my handwriting.

All for you.

The piles of pages of writings I gave to you.

Love Letters.

Will you put them in a box and stow them away under your bed?

Out of sight and out of mind.

Will you remember you have those declarations of love, my heart laid bare on paper, hidden away? Will they gather dust until you move and are forced to decide what to do with them?

Will you even keep them?

Will you burn them and watch the ashes be carried off by the wind, or will you simply drop them in the recycling bin and walk away.

Once I asked you for them back. Explaining the thought of you destroying them was too much for me to bear.

And you almost handed them over.

But you stood there, overfilled bag in hand, in front of me.

You couldn’t do it. You refused to give them back.

You closed your eyes, shook your head, and pulled them into your chest.

I had to let them go.

I wrote the love letters to you. Just for you.

I may never know what becomes of them, but they are yours.

Gravity is stronger than me.

I fell hard.

My heart was running wild and flying high with its insistence that love is the key.

The way it all works.

As I fell, I realized not everyone gets a happily ever after.

As my body hit the ground, shattering my whole being, it became clear.

Two people in love is not enough.

And in those moments of brokenness, Gravity pulled down my belief that love is all you need and smashed it.

I see now.

Love will always be above my reach.

Gravity will always win.

Even though it is broken,

my heart knows to love you.

I woke this morning with a start.

Any chance of more sleep was lost.

I hurt.

The ache centered in my chest.

I got up, made coffee, and looked at the falling snow outside my window.

Hoping I would feel peace, I watched the small flakes twinkle in the dark under the streetlamp.

But the uneasiness in my soul and the utter unfairness of it all was rooted in my mind.

I wonder how long will it take before you are not on my mind?

How long before the pain in my heart is gone?

Will I wake one morning and not think of you?

Will that be a good thing?

The butterflies in my belly have died.

The hurt in my heart, the shattering of my soul,

to endure it once more is too much.

And to endure it alone, I cannot.

You live in the dark, a place of fear.

A place with sharp corners and regret.

The soul does not recover from the wounds of what if. And learning the lessons too late will ruin you.

You were given a chance.

A chance to soften into love. 

To fill hearts with one act of bravery.

But you did not take that chance.

Every morning when you wake and every night when you drift off to sleep, I will still be on your mind.

You will not be thinking of the safe and known and the choices you made out of expectation and duty.

You will be remembering how brightly my light shone.

You will be remembering how you once held love and beauty in your arms.

And each time, you will feel the loss. 

The loss of soul connection, of deep and fierce love. The loss of what could have been.

And maybe you will wonder if life without that kind of love was really worth living.

My heart shattered and crumbled.

Falling piece by piece into the Lake, along with my tears.

The cold depths of the water swallowed all of it leaving me empty on the shore.