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Deviation Actions

Published: Apr 22, 2017

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Literature Text

sometimes people leave and you just
can't do anything about it.
they leave behind a chill in the air where
their body warmth used to be
and you can light fires and candles and
shine spotlights in place of them
but it will never feel the same.
i learned that the hard way.
he decided one morning that he was ready
to leave,
and i saw it in the shadows in his eyes and
i decided i wasn't ready to let him.
he brought kerosene in
water bottles and hid
matches in his jacket pocket and tried to burn the bridges
but i put them out with extinguishers and
painted over the burn marks so i could pretend
they weren't there.
he felt bad because he didn't want to hurt me and
i felt bad because i didn't want him to be hurting but
i didn't want to be hurting either even though i knew
one of us was going to get burned by the end of it
(there shouldn't have been any question of who
it would be, but
i was desperate and i didn't want him to leave)
so there was no communication.
he did all he could to bring it to a close without
me noticing but i would always know and always
intervene and
it went on like that for some time until
i think he just grew tired of it and resorted to
ignoring me.

i had never been keen on the thought of finding
a replacement
but in those weeks after i went through so many new faces that
i couldn't even put names to them because between
strange places and living a wide-awake / intoxicated
stasis,
i just couldn't tell the difference after
the first twelve.

no light was ever as bright as him
no body was ever as warm as him
and it's funny because
he was never my light or my warmth
but he was close enough that i told myself
he could've been.

it was always about what
could have been.
i guess when nothing ever was,
the possibilities were all i had.