La Fin

Another day of dancing through this crazy life in pitch black darkness. Swaying to the unpredictable beat, and hoping we all make it out alive. There are moments of intense sadness, grief and mourning when there has been no death. There are moments of such surprising and exceptional tenderness. A brief bit of levity. Laughing loudly as tears stream down our cheeks, and we drink our beer and stare out into the unknown, letting the darkness of uncertainty swallow us again.

I have these brief flashes of clarity in my mind. Moments where I know the truth so intimately I can't pretend any longer that I don't. I used to push these flashes of clarity and light from my mind, and continue on, blissful in my ignorance as I swam in some self destructive happiness. It got me nowhere, it helped no one. It only delayed disaster, it never prevented it. It never kept the end from coming, exactly as I knew it would. And the end never hurt any less. As I grow older, and pretend that I am much wiser, I've learned to embrace the moments where truth and honesty come to stare me in the face so vividly. I try to make myself appreciate them, but it's always so disappointing that I just can't.

I know the end when I see it. I know the feeling of something slowly dying, as the last ragged breaths touch my neck, and the wrinkled, papery hand of something withering away clutches mine. I am like a child. I try to hide from the end. I try to look past all the brown and falling leaves, to embrace the fragile roots of a lifeless tree. I hope it's not too late, I hope that things will change, I hope that I won't have to say goodbye and turn away. I hope for things I can't ever have, like a selfish fool hopes for riches they could never spend.

Something is dying. Something is breathing it's last breaths and slipping away. It's taking me with it, I'm afraid. Because I can't let go. I am spiraling through the 5 stages of grief as if they were the seven levels of Hell, and I feel like I am in free fall. Maybe I just never imagined it hurting so Goddamn much.

The end of a relationship is a death only two people know about. A whole life is lost. All the things we did, all the words we said. All the fights, and the kisses, and the moments of tenderness we shared together, in a world that was burning down to cinders. I don't know how to move on when there is no funeral, no body to bury, but I feel just like someone has died. We died. Our fragile roots withered and dry, choked by our rigidness. Our refusal to bend and give into one another. To come together and give up anything for the sake of all this love. This wasted love.

Something is dying, but I can't look away. Something in here is dying. It's us, my love. It's you and I.

And I don't know what it will be like without you.