"oh God ...!" "Sarah! just go back the way you came!"
do you ever want to go back?
back before you knew someone so well, everything from the exact location of the laughlines to the shades of the eyes when "anger" wasn't sufficient; back before the sound of the laugh could right your world; back before you could close your eyes and trace the outlines of the body wrapped around you, knowing every curve beforehand; back before you thought that loving meant giving up everything, back before you ever had any other choice.
do you ever wonder what would be different if the intimate knowledge of all of this wasn't hibernating in some back room?
consider the facts and thoughts to be antiques, silkspun webbing and dust glinting in the low light. these were your precious things, your past. this was your life line.
and consider the one that came along after you with pursed lips, flippantly purchasing the rights to it all. allowed (and expected) to touch, leave fingerprints, take away, use, abandon, love, despise or regard with indifference.
there is this place inside of you that remembers what it meant to have and to hold it all in the first place. it was worth so much; you'd given so much to keep it safe. you risked your life.
eventually, you realized that you were being foolish, stupid, even. it's as if one day very long ago, you had been in a terrible fight to bar everyone and anyone from the door. someone had come at you with a knife, you were bleeding, you were gasping. and you had collapsed with a groan, sliding to the floor. as you leaned back on the door, clutching your wound, the door opened. from the floor, you looked around yourself, bleeding. and you finally saw the room for what it was :
an empty collection of silent memories. a room of ghosts. a room hoarding the past.
someone stepped over you and into the room. that mouth, that swagger, those hands that hold the key to it all. you want to feel jealous or something like jealousy as you struggle to your feet. but you feel strange relief. a little embarassed, that it took you so long to see that you were fighting for something that would never be worth what it once was.
you're glad to give it up, you survey the place, your blood spilled. you set your mouth and back away from it all. you back away from the memories, the name, and you never go back.
one day, as you're walking along, head high, restored to your old glory, you happen to see the place out of the corner of your eye. your heart nearly stops and you struggle to maintain your composure. not because you want to go back inside, no that's not it, you reason. not because you want to call it all your own. no, you don't want that responsibility again. it nearly killed you ...
but because you remember the way it felt when it belonged to you so long ago, that mixture of pride and joy, the giddiness at his name, at the sound of your name on his mouth, the way it sounded like a symphony, the way it took your breath away when he'd smiled.
you closed your eyes, standing there, letting the memory of what was wash over you like the water that had brought you together once upon a time. your eyes fill with the same sea and spill over, you taste the spray and for a moment, your wings fill with air. the way they had when he'd loved you and it was enough to keep you at the door, risking everything, sacrificing everything. back when you thought that love meant giving up everything, back before you had any other choice.
and you open your eyes, you know better now, and you turn and walk away from it all. remembering is a haunting, you know. and even though it wasn't worth it in the end, somehow, you still smile when you happen to remember how much you valued it in the beginning.
so do you ever just want to go back?
n o .