The Empty Train Platform

A fast car. A white sundress. A watercolor sky melting into the Earth.

Kissing on the boardwalk. Entangled against the rails. Smoke billowing above glistening water.

My surprising revelation. His panicked expression. An ache in my stomach that won't go away.

Words that burn my skin and seep through, scorching my heart like poison.

I sit on his lap atop a bench as the background blurs and we are completely alone.

His hopeful lips brush against my ear, asking a question.

My sad eyes lock with his, responding incorrectly.

His frustrated sigh. My series of sniffles. The rarity of his outstretched arm wrapped around my side.

I hold on tight with both hands, hugging him. I ask myself the same question he asked a few moments before:

Why can't this be enough?

A slow car. A tear-stained dress. A navy sky of tiny diamonds.

We bicker. I weep. He pleads. I question.

A train sits at the station. He urges me to leave.

It feels like the last scene of our movie before the credits roll, yet there are still so many untied loose ends in our story; so many questions I haven't asked.

For so long, he's been my constellation in a dark sky: my comfort and pain, all at once. My most exciting adventure; my most terrifying thrill.

Maybe I'm a masochist after all.

White tulle flutters in the wind as I run to the empty train platform to miss my ride. He joins me to give a speech that feels final but forced.

And yet, despite what I should be feeling, I'm thinking...

Can time just pause?

Can he embrace me just a little longer?

Can this warm, perfect June evening just stretch on until he's not him and I'm not me, and we're not the lovers we now pretend to be?

It hurts so much, I can't breathe... this control he has over me.