HOME | DD

Description
                      Dear Loved One,

                                    This morning, I woke up alone.

     Your side of the bed was undisturbed, bedsheets folded neatly, your warmth absent. I lay stationary in the dawn, aching to feel you alive beside me. At last the sun fell in dull stripes on your pillow, morning unfolding around me as your alarm clock radio came alive... I placed my feet on the cold floor, walked in a daze to the sound and turned it off, feeling guilty that you'd be late...
                                                but you are not there to wake.

       I wrote a rigid schedule of tasks that would not bring you to my mind. [Anything to keep "you" out of "me".] And yet you haunt me- While doing the dishes, a coffee cup slipped from my fingers. I watched with an all-consuming ache as shards scattered over kitchen tiles. I knelt to sweep up the pieces, overcome by memories-
                                          I remembered the day we met, vivid and real.
     I was working at the cafe, trying to make ends meet. You could have been any other man to me until I spilt scalding coffee on you. I cried for burning you, convinced I'd lose my job: you just took off your jacket, smiled, forgave...
                   "It was an accident."
                                       [I saved the broken pieces in a box under my bed.]

    One turn of seasons later, staring out over an endless skyline, you took my hands in yours and I felt alive again. I was so in love- Your ring sparkled like a band of stars on my finger. Under the city lights, I consented to engagement.
            I moved in with you, discarding the dusty scraps of a former life. I left little messages of love for you, etching hearts and stars into the butter so that when you made breakfast you'd think of us. I had flowers delivered to your office, woke up to make coffee just the way you favour it, hid notes in your coat pockets. Each morning, I made sure to kiss you goodbye.

       Autumn became winter, and I found myself watching the door for long hours on the nights you "stayed late." Some nights, I fell asleep waiting, waking to blue dawn and the sound of the front door. You still kissed me, but I knew from the taste of bourbon that a bitter chemical love had replaced me. I said nothing. "I can save you," I thought.
                                  "You love me."

     The first time you hit me was in early November: still I held you on high with bruised arms and fragile hands. Falling down stairs, running into doors, accidental injury- I had an excuse for each bruise that blossomed.
                "It was an accident." - This time, I couldn't take away the pain.
                                                                         I was so scared.

     I couldn't leave you; you were all I had. When protective services came to take you from me I cried. I said anything that came to mind, transcending reason to keep you. Looking back, I must have seemed so desperate, insane even. ["Stockholm syndrome", they call it.] I begged for one day, one hour, ten minutes to say goodbye. To be given five was a mercy. I stood before you then, petrified-
                          Two minutes passed, and words danced beyond my reach.

             I wanted to erase your violent history, to rewrite our story from the beginning. I wanted to shake you by the shoulders and have you wake up, open your eyes to my pain! I said I loved you, and I meant every word. "I love you."- Only silence answered me. In the end, all I could do was whisper farewell.
                 I felt my heart splinter, the truth so frigid and the world so suddenly still.
                                                          I did not watch you go.

I don't know how long I wept, lying on your side of the bed. I don't remember what I was thinking, taking your T-shirts from the closet, pressing the cool fabric close with shaking hands, breathing in the scent of you-
                                       it's fading now, and I wake to a new skyline.

I was alone long before you left my side.