by Grace Dorman
Ambiguity was your forte, tenacity mine.
Chemistry was our Achilles heel.
Ambiguity was your forte, tenacity mine.
Chemistry was our Achilles heel.
You were a human of sparse affection, but one whose kiss was softer than expected. You danced like a burning man and when nobody was looking you held a very serious expression.
I assumed you to be someone that never remembered, the inadvertently absent minded type – yet when was least expected you’d pull a forgotten detail and throw it down into the ring – a verbal gauntlet. Just for fun.
I knew you needed it the next day, so I placed it on a hanger. You watched me, your expression unreadable. I crossed a line with my kindness.
Your tendency to regress to a five-year-old clashed terribly with my obtrusive nature. We became an unnatural disaster; the emotional tectonic plates became steadily incongruent.
We became only about ego, points were awarded to the one that wouldn’t give in. Exhibiting values and thoughts is the most courageous thing one can do. To put yourself on a plate for the world to gaze at, pick at, taste test. Yet we wouldn’t, we didn’t. We each had a cavalry of defence; it was survival of the (un) fittest.
You were known to infuriate me; I was known to push you too far. Yet when we were alight we burned like New Year’s Eve with an equal crowd. Battle scars became trophies, mementos of moments invested. I’m still not sure what we were fighting for.
We chased our tails and time moved by. I’d stumble home, you wouldn’t follow.
Fallout numero uno was pitiful at best. We’d give off sparks of light and laughter when in the same room. But overnight, protocol was to turn our backs and divert our eyes, occupy ourselves with whatever was a valid distraction. In reality, we were dissolving inside.
We seemed hell bent on closing the holes we’d opened. Eradicating any space we’d once filled with the other. To become the humans we used to be, to polish our tainted self worth into shape. Cover the fact we’d cared with a method of months of avoidance.
If we were to go down in flames, if we were to destroy each other, to go to the darkest of places, to visit the most frustrating, lonely, angry or disappointed realms in The Land of Tortured Endings, at least we would have had fucking tried.
You challenged and I reacted. You pointed to the door and we erupted.
It was always going to end this way.
Spite and awkwardness are a lethal combination, when actions conflict with desires. We wanted to treat each other well, but we didn’t know how. We lost our unique brand of love, it seemed we were all or nothing.
We came back. Back like before, back like we’d be after we would inevitably leave. After we’d licked our wounds, after we’d given up for the thousandth time. Like no time had elapsed, willing to jump into the fire and let it do as much damage as we could handle.
We’d occurred for long enough now that it only became more comical rather than painful, when we broke apart and tiptoed away from each other.
We were cowards. We let history win. Terror ensured our reluctance to get involved, though we knew what we could have been. We hesitated, we considered, we went back and forth. It was our only similarity.
All of that we knew, yet we were unable to fix ourselves.
The difference was this: I was willing to take the risk. I saw you, you and all your flaws.
And I think I loved you anyway. We needed to reach a dizzy height if the fall was to be spectacular enough to satisfy me.
At last we were destroyed.
I assumed you to be someone that never remembered, the inadvertently absent minded type – yet when was least expected you’d pull a forgotten detail and throw it down into the ring – a verbal gauntlet. Just for fun.
I knew you needed it the next day, so I placed it on a hanger. You watched me, your expression unreadable. I crossed a line with my kindness.
Your tendency to regress to a five-year-old clashed terribly with my obtrusive nature. We became an unnatural disaster; the emotional tectonic plates became steadily incongruent.
We became only about ego, points were awarded to the one that wouldn’t give in. Exhibiting values and thoughts is the most courageous thing one can do. To put yourself on a plate for the world to gaze at, pick at, taste test. Yet we wouldn’t, we didn’t. We each had a cavalry of defence; it was survival of the (un) fittest.
You were known to infuriate me; I was known to push you too far. Yet when we were alight we burned like New Year’s Eve with an equal crowd. Battle scars became trophies, mementos of moments invested. I’m still not sure what we were fighting for.
We chased our tails and time moved by. I’d stumble home, you wouldn’t follow.
Fallout numero uno was pitiful at best. We’d give off sparks of light and laughter when in the same room. But overnight, protocol was to turn our backs and divert our eyes, occupy ourselves with whatever was a valid distraction. In reality, we were dissolving inside.
We seemed hell bent on closing the holes we’d opened. Eradicating any space we’d once filled with the other. To become the humans we used to be, to polish our tainted self worth into shape. Cover the fact we’d cared with a method of months of avoidance.
If we were to go down in flames, if we were to destroy each other, to go to the darkest of places, to visit the most frustrating, lonely, angry or disappointed realms in The Land of Tortured Endings, at least we would have had fucking tried.
You challenged and I reacted. You pointed to the door and we erupted.
It was always going to end this way.
Spite and awkwardness are a lethal combination, when actions conflict with desires. We wanted to treat each other well, but we didn’t know how. We lost our unique brand of love, it seemed we were all or nothing.
We came back. Back like before, back like we’d be after we would inevitably leave. After we’d licked our wounds, after we’d given up for the thousandth time. Like no time had elapsed, willing to jump into the fire and let it do as much damage as we could handle.
We’d occurred for long enough now that it only became more comical rather than painful, when we broke apart and tiptoed away from each other.
We were cowards. We let history win. Terror ensured our reluctance to get involved, though we knew what we could have been. We hesitated, we considered, we went back and forth. It was our only similarity.
All of that we knew, yet we were unable to fix ourselves.
The difference was this: I was willing to take the risk. I saw you, you and all your flaws.
And I think I loved you anyway. We needed to reach a dizzy height if the fall was to be spectacular enough to satisfy me.
At last we were destroyed.
