One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

WEDNESDAY

The world must be sick of us. It sure is acting like it, since it's cutting into our unfinished dance, worse, as an uninvited guest. Our song hasn't even ended yet. We were still basking in our moment, but here we are being pulled apart, out of eyes reach.

Where did you go, beautiful? Where am I going? There's too many questions left unanswered and I can't be satisfied leaving things the way they are. There's no closure. No warnings. No heads up.

It's too sudden and I can't deal with it. I can't.

Why are we so made, so built to fall in love, when one person has to outlive the other? Why are there so many songs out there that say someone wants to die lying in the arms of the one they fell for like it's a good thing? Why do we meet someone indescribable, someone that's woven into our souls, and then are later forced to leave each other behind? Why, if they have to go at all, can they live the same long life and go out together?

It doesn't even sound right, especially in the way it is for me and feeling it happen --actually going through it, is so so bad. What I can't understand is suffocating me, no exaggeration. It's choking me with a hand of long nails and scorching into my skin.

I just don't get it.

Love is made to be spectacular. It can't be explained, but in a way that even considering those people who don't like surprises, it defies the odds there too. The mystery is thrilling and love tells us that the sky is the limit. That we've been barricaded by our own roofs for too long and that there's a world out there to explore.

Let's take you, for example.

I remember so well how I spoke of you to my close friends and my family when I came across you back in the beginning. They asked me what I saw in you and what specifically it was about you that made my heart pitter patter the way it did -- like rain on a window sill.

And I couldn't tell them how I felt. Language can't put that into words, no matter how deep and profound it is. All I told them was that you were smart. That you were pretty. That you were kind. That you were good for me. That you make me more, and all of that was true. It always will be, but it didn't really speak, you know?

I mean, there truth is, it's realistic to say that there were smarter people out there. Kinder, and God forbid that I say it, but prettier as well, but that wasn't what it was about. You're you and in this world there is no other you. Only one could be this right for me. We just fit. It just worked, and that was the end of it.

I think real love is unexplainable like that. Seriously I do.

Which is why I hate being here like this. It's cold, and my heart is getting rusty. I want to be anywhere as long as it's with you and as long as it's not here, but the gears in my body won't rotate and the steering wheel of life is stuck in one solid place. At this point, I'm counting down without a choice, every presence near me a knife to my chest, as they check up on my IVs and the thousands of wires on my body.

They're living brutal reminders, and every single one, I'm looking back at the life I once led. I won't be getting anywhere from here on out, and it's scary, but it's the way it is.

I can only imagine what it'll be like for you. I know you're going to say it's unfair, and that it wasn't supposed to be this way. You're right too, it's not, and I can say that a million times, but it's what's happening. I hope you realize that whole you'll mourn for me for a while as much as I despise thinking about it, I, in some sense, and in my last moments, mourned for you just the same.

My senses are piling me with everything we once had. I'm feeling it's weight, one by one, adding up on top of me. My steadiness is failing me.

But I like what I see, at least. That's a fact.

If only I could stop and stare at you one last time. Feel that blood rush in my cheeks like I always did when you arrived in my sight. Feel the warmth when your hand was in mine, and how it was far more comforting that covers out of the dryer. Feel your hugs, and how you'd rest your head on my collarbone when you did.

Feel you.

Feel.

THURSDAY

We were once weak hearts. Broken ones, back before we crossed into each other's paths. We'd lay up at night, eyes too dry of tears to cry, craving for alcohol to give us a temporary buzz of soothing, but both of us did the same, and refused, not wanting someone to accidently stumble upon us drunk out of our minds and be disappointed of who we become.

We didn't know how we got there like that. We'd become miserable and frail, and we lost passion for the things that once put meaning into our lives. We lacked the liveliness we used to have. The youth and the innocence of what feels like centuries ago, when all we wanted to so was idiotically grow up.

We were frustrated with life, trying to make it work, and no matter how hard we tried it wouldn't cooperate with us. It was a bad sport. It mocked us, and treated us wrongly, and we were tired. Exhausted. Without purpose.

Why strive to be better? Why try? On different ends of the sea, we were on the same page in the worst way that we could be.

Then, we ran into each other. Finally. And we needed each other desperately. There were hesitations. The road was rocky, but once we clung to each other, we clung for dear life. Whatever the trouble, we were there, as side by side as we could possibly get, and were were strong in whatever way we were tested.

Sometimes that meant we kept an eye on each other when we gave into our cravings with the cheap bottles of wine so we wouldn't make fools of ourselves, and sometimes that meant that we talked until the sun came up, ranting, and being vulnerable with each other with smiles and with tears.

Every time we met, it was like the first. We never got tired of one another, no matter how tired we were of ourselves, and no matter how tired we were physically. Honestly though, who could've ever gotten tired of you?

With that, we made it. We held our heads high through the pains that was thrown in our faces like a food fight in a middle school cafeteria, and in baby steps we made it work. We made us work. We fought for what we had the potential of heading towards. We crossed the finish line, and we started a new journey.

Crazy times we've been living in, baby. It took it's toll on us, it drove us up the walls too, but somehow we turned it into our fire. We let it be what kept us going. What powered us to continue. To go on. To stand back up again.

Is it possible? Now, can we do that like we used to do? Can we pull through this together? Can we reach what we've been aiming for? Can we turn this into a false alarm? A trial that we jump up from and forget about in ten, twenty years, buried beneath so many other memories that it can't be recalled?

Don't give up on me.

Help me stay. We can make it again, can't we?

FRIDAY

Life with you has been a love song. Every person out there knew of us once they asked. We were proud to have found one another. We were happy to finally find home for our hearts after it was abandoned. It's only common sense that I dream of you behind closed eyes.

What if we were too powerful for this world? Too good? Don't you think that we could've taken it by storm? After all, I've hardly ever been confident about anything until we oh so perfectly collided as we did. A graceful fall, that didn't seem to exist anymore in a world of glass that shattered every time.

We hoped to make it as far as we did, and if I'm laying myself bare with it, further than we did. We looked each other in the eyes and we held a gaze that we promised never to look away from. That we always wanted to keep, as if we were the most incredible landmarks on earth or one of the seven wonders of the world.

And I'll never get used to it. I never will, because you know what happens when people 'get used to' things? They get careless. They don't appreciate. You know the type, yeah?

Those ones that dress up professionally for their job interview and present themselves fondly with this fear of not getting hired to eventually not getting fired, but that slowly let themselves go and end up showing up to work in their pajamas. Those that walk with their arms folded in front of their chest by the aisles of fragile makings, but that start skipping through it when they've come by several times. Those that grip the steering wheel last tightly after they've started driving more than once.

I might be like that in a billion ways. I'm reckless sometimes. I'm a bit clumsy, a bit of a mess. I stumble a lot. I'm not the best with words or with actions. I make a ton of mistakes. I have a lot of regrets. I'm me.

But I'll never stop trying, because you're worth improving for. I knew that ever since my eyes couldn't help but follow you as far as they could see when you began your journey home. I always said that it was to make sure you were safe, but as true as that was, the main reason was I lost my breath looking at you, but it was addicting to feel that feeling, even more when I saw you look back at me.

Sure, I wasn't the best. You deserved better, but let's face it. There was never anyone out there that was good enough for you and I knew that if I didn't try, you'd fall into hands that would be worse than I could do. I had to step up and be that person for you. The one that fulfilled his promises.

That's why I always held your hand. I opened doors, and I continued to choose you every single day. You weren't something to 'get used to' and it's never meant to be that way. I told you I'd care of you, and I have to. Not only as a duty but as a want.

You know what else I want? I want forever. Not a momentary phase that ends today and can never be picked up again. I want to look in the mirror and watch myself age beside you, becoming better people together. I want to prove to you all my life that not everything changes. That some things stay the same. That my heart still skips at beat when I hear your name and hear you laugh.

But part or me feels stupid. I feel like a fool, like I should've never let you close to me as much as you mean because now I'm putting pain on you. I'm leaving you behind in the middle of nowhere, afraid and alone.

I despise myself for that. I can't control being this helpless, but I still feel so heartless, so cold and so evil. I want to protect the naive part of you. The one that sees good in people, in things and in situations. I want to protect your soul. The side of you that has the energy to joke. The piece of you that bursts out in song out of the blue.

But what exactly can I do? I can't turn back what's happened to me, and now it seems like when I go, you might cry less and less but still hurt on the inside. Tears might disappear, but you'll keep in mind that I had to leave, that I took my last breath. You'll struggle to move on, and you'll struggle to force yourself to love me less.

I can't let that happen, but what do I do when we don't stand a chance? I'm longing so badly to come home to you, but what if I can't? Do I embrace our sad truth, my love?

Will you ever be able to embrace it?

SATURDAY

Have I mentioned that you're royalty? I bet I have too many times that by now you're sick and tired of it, but my advice? Accept it. The thought has never slipped my mind and it won't. It suits you. That's not my fault. Ha! Isn't it yours?

Thinking of it makes me want to play make-believe for a quick second.

You're in for rulership as far as the eye can see, upon a lofty throne draped with gold, diamonds, purple clothing and only the finest food in all the land for the finest person ever seen. And as for me, I'll be your number one. The person there when the pressure is on and everything is crumbling. The person who will steady your hands and lift the chin on your pouting face.

There for you, where I should be, doing anything for you. Anything.

I'll take your mind when you're feeling pain, and collect the rain within you so that you can heal, genuinely and entirely, and feel good as new. I'll take what you were before and the burden it put on you, the senses that make you feel what you shouldn't have to anymore, and I'll somersault it into the sea, an empty sail that catches wind far far away from you, never to be seen again.

I'll hold your heart and I'll hold your hand, and conceal your darkness at the ocean floor, so it can never wash up on the shore. The pokey sand, and the you who you regret, the you who you're not proud of, is nothing today. Nothing.

I promise, I'm here, and a few tears here and there is not going to be enough to drive me away, so let them out when you're feeling down. Don't be afraid to let it out, let yourself be relieved and not be bottled.

Let me tell myself that this will last, even if it won't. Let me tell a lie that will comfort me rather than a truth that will destroy. Let me see not a life that I'm gone and upsetting you, but one that I don't have to pretend that I'm okay, and that my every days are normal, just as they always have been.

Because it hurts. It hurts being so close to you, having so much more to say and so much more to do, and having to walk away from it all, never being able to experience what our future could've held. All I wanted was to see love. That's what I've been trying to do, all along. All this time.

I don't want you to have to put up with the pain of loss, have to force the smiles that used to he natural and feel alone like you used to. I don't want you to struggle to wake up every morning, to get into your clothes, and do things that you haven't struggled with in so long. I don't want to keep the words saved in my heart saved forever. I don't want to go without having popped the question.

That should never be left unspoken. Those are words that need to be heard.

And that's why make-believe, fantasies, and fiction are easier. Why reality is too hard.

Can we run off into our own script? One with a happily ever after? One that we can't find here? One where we own the world, just the two of us?

SUNDAY

I know what it's like to feel like a flame in the middle of a thundering day, or like the broken glass in a picture frame.

In a world that seems to go on without you, feeling helpless, alone, a loser and fragile, it's just as bad as it sounds, or worse, but there's a level above it that comes with further extremities. A level that consists of everything going well. That's been telling me that everything is alright.

I was wrong about it. I was forsaken, and the most unexpected time, I became too delicate to simply stand on my own two feet. I'm trying, really I am, to reverse this madness that has come upon me and to come out of it stronger, better, more thankful for life as I had it, but it's not as easy as I was hoping it to be.

Inspirational quotes and lines in movies may be uplifting and help you trudge through sometimes, but there are some circumstances that it can't apply to. Not when the bricks are piling up on me and I can barely move my toes.

Maybe I can't. Maybe I'm only imagining it.

I wish I can wipe the dust off my hands, onto my jeans and just shake it off. Stand up again out of the madness within, and decided that I've had enough of this. That I want to live to the fullest that I can. That I'm done being pushed and shoved around, taking on these what ifs and frights. That I want to taste my full potential, and that I want to bend as far as I possibly can until I snap.

That I want to get up and try again. One more chance at life. One more yank of adrenaline to bring me back to the top.

But I'm tired. I'm tired because too much can be said and not done. Why do people say that if you get back up and throw yourself back into the race, that the pieces just put themselves back where they belong? Sure, it's possible they do, but it's not automatic. It's not that easy.

I'm having so much trouble, baby.

I can't believe this is what we're coming to. I mean, even if this all turned out for the best, it's messed up that either one of us have to go through this kind of trial.

This is what people mean. I don't know how many times I've been told to take what you've been given before it's too late, before it's gone. I don't think I comprehended what they meant. I don't think it really soaked in, truly clicked, but if I get another chance at life, I'll hold on.

To you, and to the little things. The ray of sun peeking in through the curtains and onto the bed. The view from the top of the mountains, or at the tip of a canyon, where looking down is proven to be beautiful sometimes.

I'm done. I'm done with living life like it's not a novel with the last pages ripped out of the binding, ending so abruptly. I'm done pretending that life perfectly ends on our terms.

I'm taking advantage of every second I have with you, and I'll make sure that you have memories, that are so powerful. Powerful enough that even when we grow old and forget things, and might not remember it elaborately, we can feel it behind our chests.

I hope I'm granted one more time.

MONDAY

You were at the end of a very narrow path. A path that most people didn't leave their footsteps in, but I tried to see where that path would lead to while other people mumbled about feeling sorry for themselves. I started my own journey, trying to lift up my head and that's where I found you. At the final destination of improving myself, loving myself and being happy.

They got absolutely nowhere. And I? Well, you've already heard. I fell in love too, with your soul and your beating heart. It was blind footsteps that got me that for. It was me taking a bit of a risk, laying everything down on the line, that allowed me to see you face to face.

It didn't happen overnight. It took time for me to be gutsy enough to look you in the eye, let alone speak to you. That path was so broken and worn down though hardly anybody had ever walked it, and I was afraid that it would snap and hurl me into the fire below.

I lost my footing at times. Every so often, I couldn't tell my right to my life or north to south, but I wiped the sweat away and I kept going on, pushing through, praying that there was something valuable on the other side. I followed the feeling like a lamp to my foot, and then there you were.

Everything pointed me right to you.

The dreams that I never reached in the past. The bad things that happened, the squeeze on my heart and the hardship in my blood, it all brought me to you. I was nourished back to good health, warm in arms that truly loved me and that supported me. Cared for by a kiss that I always thought was a medicine to expensive for someone like me.

The agony to get to you, to reach you surely didn't feel like it, but it was a blessing, or at the very least, it led me to one, and I don't know about you, but I think anything that connected the dots between you and I is beauty more than this world has ever known. A love story not meant to end in tragedy.

Time wasted, time lost, it seemed to return to my hand, like I owned ir when we crossed, and that laugh and that hand of yours seemed to add to my life span, I would've sworn. You've always been here. You understood, and that told me that altogether there was something even bigger that was coming for us.

I still think there is. There should be, and if I could only figure out how to find my way back to the home built in your heart through the same path that led me to you the first time, to find that blessing one more time, we would be feeling it right now.

Arguing about who should do the dishes, just to end up doing them together. Making out in the kitchen as 3 am with a way past midnight snack in the microwave, baggy clothes loose on our bodies like they do in those rom-coms. Packing school lunches and kissing our kids goodbye on their way to class in the early morning, where they'll see every time the same love in our eyes for each other that'll never ever fade.

They seem like little things now, but it's all part of a bigger picture. Every tiny thing counts.

Less is more.

I want the 'less is more' life with you, darling.