Standing on the Brink
I have the thread of it. I know which one it is and I can feel it when I pull or pick at it. The trouble is that every time I loosen the knot the thread snarls again as soon as I let go of it. It takes so much effort and it's so frustrating to me. Why couldn't I have been presented with an easier challenge, one that was not so integral?
You've become integral. It was my own naivety that allowed it. I gave you a place in my life second only to husband and children and only second because of physical distance and legal technicality. I couldn't wait, I couldn't be cautious, because I don't know how to give only part of my heart. I imagined ways in which we would change. I knew in my soul that you would tire of me and that other stars would shine more brightly in your night sky, but never did I imagine that I could ever lose you so completely as this. Where once I could taste your spirit at will I can now sense only a wall of ice: gargantuan, impermeable, and cold, no matter its transparency. Never before have I longed for the voice of another the way I long for yours now. Never have I mourned so deeply.
To tell me now that this is just a pause, not an end...to tell me now, after weeks of silence, and months of retreat...
The harm that has been done has been done to us, not just to me. A shadow of its former self, indeed.
I will pull myself together, and I will make this visit. My husband thinks I should. I've given you every opportunity to tell me not to come and you have not taken it. I need to see you and learn to be impassive in your presence, or I will never learn it away. I will learn to put my heart away, and to be more cautious with you. My love for you is no less than it ever was, but I cannot place the knife at my neck for you anymore.
Perhaps that is what you wanted all along.