06-09-2019, 03:58 AM
She could have never predicted that actually having him here was just as painful as being away from him. Even with her lips against his skin, even with her heart beating in her chest, he still cannot grasp that she is here, and it breaks her. She can feel herself splintering apart, she can feel a cold desperation spreading in her veins until it ceases hold of her heart, and that painfully soft plea returns to her voice when she says into the tangled strands of his mane, “But I am real. I’m just as real as I’ve always been.” As real as the first time she had met him in the meadow, and all the hundreds of times in between. As real as the last time she had held him, however long ago that had been. There was no way in knowing that it was going to be the last time; there never was.
But even when she stands there with a pain in her chest that it is almost tangible – a feeling so strong it could manifest itself into something physical enough to hand to him – she marvels at the fact that nothing has changed. How many countless times had one of them stood before the other, withering and broken, seeking forgiveness or some other kind of mercy that only the other could provide? There is something distorted and nostalgic about this familiar anguish that fills her up until she’s no longer empty, until she is full of memories that had once been so painful and yet had now somehow transformed into something sweet.
The only thing she has ever known is how to fight for him, and it is still the only thing she knows will never change.
“I know,” she agrees with him quietly. Most of their children she has not seen nearly as long as the last time she saw him, and sometimes recalling their faces is more painful than even his own. “I don’t know where they are, but I like to think that they’re fine. We raised them to survive anything.” She answers him truthfully, even though it contradicts what he thinks; she’s not dead, and she has no idea if their children are or not.
His last words bring a slow smile to her face, one that he cannot see with her head resting where it does near his chest, but it is evident in her voice all the same when she disagrees with him, “You have always been a great father. Our children were lucky to have you.” He still cannot see when the smile fades from her lips, or when the melancholy returns to her dark brown eyes that now close as a sigh shudders from her chest. “I’ve been lucky to have you, too.” Whenever you choose me, she doesn’t say, and whenever you come back, remains a sorrowful thought inside of her head.
P L U M E R I A
when all of the light is gone
a single spark is all I need.
But even when she stands there with a pain in her chest that it is almost tangible – a feeling so strong it could manifest itself into something physical enough to hand to him – she marvels at the fact that nothing has changed. How many countless times had one of them stood before the other, withering and broken, seeking forgiveness or some other kind of mercy that only the other could provide? There is something distorted and nostalgic about this familiar anguish that fills her up until she’s no longer empty, until she is full of memories that had once been so painful and yet had now somehow transformed into something sweet.
The only thing she has ever known is how to fight for him, and it is still the only thing she knows will never change.
“I know,” she agrees with him quietly. Most of their children she has not seen nearly as long as the last time she saw him, and sometimes recalling their faces is more painful than even his own. “I don’t know where they are, but I like to think that they’re fine. We raised them to survive anything.” She answers him truthfully, even though it contradicts what he thinks; she’s not dead, and she has no idea if their children are or not.
His last words bring a slow smile to her face, one that he cannot see with her head resting where it does near his chest, but it is evident in her voice all the same when she disagrees with him, “You have always been a great father. Our children were lucky to have you.” He still cannot see when the smile fades from her lips, or when the melancholy returns to her dark brown eyes that now close as a sigh shudders from her chest. “I’ve been lucky to have you, too.” Whenever you choose me, she doesn’t say, and whenever you come back, remains a sorrowful thought inside of her head.
when all of the light is gone
a single spark is all I need.