Departure

I see you lying on your bed and wondering why I am not lying beside you. You curl on your side and wonder why I left a hole in your heart the callous way I did. No, not a hole – a gaping abyss forced open, stripped bare of the love we once had, and hung up to dry in the sun. Didn’t I promise to be there for you? Aren’t I still there for you? Am I?

When you look up at the stars and wish for my warmth by your side, I will be there. When you stand on a lonely cliff top and want to express that feeling of power, I will be there. When you sit on a bench silently watching the sun set over the lake, I will be there. But when you lie alone in your bed, wondering where my hand is, you remember that I am not there. And you realize with a start that I was never really there, not once in all the times I promised.

You think I lied to you. I lied to myself. That is why you never caught me red-handed.

Keep asking those questions. Light a cigarette, I know your hands get lonely without me. Pour yourself a drink. Or two. Or three. Walk over to the mirror and stare at your haggard reflection. Look at the spot above your shoulder, that empty patch of air where a laugh should have been. Yes, I know, I am sad too. But I left, as always. I leave. Again.

Suddenly you scream in rage and throw your glass at the mirror. Smash, crash. A million sparkling tiny fragments, reflecting your demented howls a million times. And the tinkle echoes a laughter never forgotten. You drown it with your feral howls. That’s when you look up and see me standing by the door, bleeding from cuts made by flying glass. You open your mouth to say something, then close it. I merely smile, and slowly turn away. With all the grace I can dredge up from my broken body.

Sleep on your side. Toss and turn tonight, the bedclothes will remain blank. Despite all your attempts to fill it with flesh, it will remain empty. You curse me and tell yourself you will never love again. Then you realize that I have won, so you promise instead to guard your love the next time. You swear that no one will touch your heart so deep again, and you painstakingly rebuild your walls and retreat behind them. There you will remain.

Selfish I may have been, but I preferred my loneliness and self-centeredness. I wanted your love, but I did not deserve it. And no one deserves me. I will grope my way along my own private path.

And you learn. You get over it. You move on. Only sometimes, you wake up screaming in the middle of the night and wonder why I left you.

Someday you will understand the truth. I never left you. I was never there.